72 Hours: Uprising
by Anthony Marston
Summary: The Rebellion Begins. A sequel to 72 Hours
1. Bloody Memorial

Author's Note: This story is voluntarily rated M for scenes involving graphic, sadistic, pervasive violence and torture, strong language, nudity and sexual themes, alcohol, tobacco and drug use (all by teenagers), and basically being pretty messed up in general. By continuing on you certify that you are mature enough to handle such things without thereafter requiring intensive therapy, admission to an asylum, or new underpants. Otherwise, please close this book now. That having been said, I sincerely hope you enjoy the story, or if you cannot enjoy it, that you please refrain from throwing things at me.

Additional Note: As this story is a direct sequel to 72 Hours, reading it in advance is highly recommended as it will be referenced frequently.

Legal Stuff: This story is not affiliated with Toei Company Ltd., the producers of Battle Royale, Koushun Takami, Viz Comics, and any of the companies, real or imagined, mentioned in this story for the sake of satire or involved with production of the original film and/or novel. Any and all characters, organizations and products created within the universe of this story and its predecessor, "72 Hours" belong to me, and although I know there's nothing I can do to enforce it I do ask for some restraint or a heads up at the very least should you wish to borrow them. The movies, TV shows and songs referenced throughout the story all belong to their respective owners; however the characters within the story are owned by the author. These characters are for the most part fictional though some have a distinct basis in reality, though I hope enough has been changed that if they happen to stumble upon this book they're not horribly offended. If they are, please refrain from throwing things at me.

You've been warned.

* * *

**Bloody Memorial**

* * *

There was nothing meticulous to the memorial for Ralph Fogal, though considering the fact that it was probably how he would have most enjoyed it, nobody paid it any mind. A bizarre collection of teddy bears, flowers, panties (by some of his closer friends who knew that wherever he was he'd be laughing) and pictures had accumulated underneath the tree where he would have typically eaten his lunch. The 30 degree temperature and light layer of snow had worked together to slightly freeze much of what the grieving students had arranged, but the spirit of the day allowed few to care.

They were going to do something.

The mood was grim across the school as many had been aware of the protest that was going to take place during lunch. Additionally, the fact that the school had been surrounded by riot police waiting for something to happen since morning gave few reason to smile.

However, there were those who saw this as a good thing. There were those who wanted to make Ralph's killers pay, there were those who wanted to make a spectacle out of it, and all in all there were those who were willing to do anything to make sure that Ralph Fogal would be remembered.

* * *

In the grand scheme of things, Ralph Fogal wasn't really all that important a person. In Amberlaine High School he'd been nothing more than a bit of a class clown mixed with something of a survivor, as he'd spent much of his life growing up on the mean streets of Detroit before his parents had gained the money to go a bit more suburban. He was liked well enough, though wasn't really popular. He was funny to those who knew him, but hardly memorable to the rest. His tendency to chew on matchsticks and the fact that he seemed to shower maybe only once every other week made him hardly popular to sit around. So, in all probability his untimely and premature death should have gone reasonably unnoticed.

The problem wasn't _that_ he'd died so much as it was _how_ he had died.

The official word was that he was executed per standard regulations for taking part in an unsanctioned anti-government rally. Those who knew him better also knew that this wasn't the case. Was he a loudmouth? Yes. Was he a bit of a jerk? Perhaps. But he was no protestor. He was loud and proud in his view that everyone's business was their business and he didn't want anything to do with it. True, he kept company that was of the more radical persuasion, but he was no rebel. Though no other students at Amberlaine had seen him die, if you were to ask any who had known him they would all easily say that Ralph was in the wrong place at the wrong time and that his death was unnecessary.

And yet still, given the climate of the country his death should still have gone without notice. Time and again people were executed for various offenses against the state, others disappearing without a trace. The really bad youths they'd even send to Bunazca, yet that was a place that most feared to speak of and even more to even think of. Fear for the most part kept people quiet, yet there were some who refused to feel it. There were those who chose not to give in and would still fight back whether it was for the best or not. There were those who chose not to let these injustices go slightly.

And some of them had been Ralph's friends. They were the ones who had decided to do something.

* * *

The mood at the far table in the Amberlaine High School library was tense to say the least. Judging by the rest of the room you'd have had a hard time telling, as much of it was decked out with decorations for the upcoming holiday season. Cheerful plastic Santa's and faux-Christmas trees practically stared at the group sitting at the far table, accusing them of something they'd yet to commit. This wasn't far from the truth however, because as it was the odds of any of them seeing Christmas seemed slim at best.

"There's no backing down now," said Harlan Musgrove, a large boy in the letterman's jacket, "they've got cops at all the exits of the school. They all got armor and shields, like they're ready for a riot. They know something's going on."

"How could they?" Miranda Gardner protested as curly blonde hair bobbed around her shoulders, "We were so careful!"

"Somebody talked," said Danny Arkham, an intimidating boy in a black leather jacket, "we spread ourselves too thin, talked to too many people."

"With people like yours no wonder!" Harlan shot back. "Because of you we've had to deal with people like Cilek and McIntyre, your people are nuts!"

"Hey, my "people" have been more than willing to put everything on the line than yours. We've got the will, we know what to do, you've got the bodies and the brunt."

As the squabble at the table began to boil over, more of the library began to feel the tension. It was a cold day, on the verge of snowing again outside, and with the holidays coming much of the school's population had decided to take an early break. They ignored the political climate that gripped the school and the still-fresh memorial outside on the half-frozen quad.

Aside from the seven at the table there were maybe forty people in the library. Some knew of the plan, others didn't. Those who did could clearly be seen to steal glances at the far table, while those who didn't either tried to maintain their conversations or wondered what was going on. Even they had the slightest notion of what was going on, yet they still wouldn't get in the way if they could help it.

It was all getting bad, fast, and the situation was ready to explode before it truly even began.

This made Isaac Freemantle nervous.

He'd known from the beginning that staging a protest would be a dangerous affair. Practically every major demonstration ever since the Battle Royale Act had been initiated was put down with force, often resulting in many fatalities. Those who led them were often hanged to set examples. They would use fear to keep people in line.

But as it was, Isaac didn't take to being afraid. He embraced more than anything else the fact that America was a country founded on revolution, and if the people didn't have their say that it wouldn't be worth living anyway. He was good friends with Ralph Fogal, and he wasn't going to let that kid have died in vain. He was going to protest, and he was going to do it loud. However, unlike most of those who decided to take the example of Gandhi and go in peace, Isaac fully intended to draw blood...

_Sometimes if you really want to make a point, you gotta do it with blood. They expected us to fear that, well, now we'll make them fear it..._

The only problem was that his dream team was beginning to implode upon itself. That hadn't been a part of the plan. He'd assembled the best and brightest he could, some of them who had known Ralph, others he'd known to be trustworthy and connected. Including himself they numbered seven, and in the beginning they all had enough piss and vinegar to actually pull this off. Between all of them they had gathered up something of an army, and through Danny's less than reputable contacts they had procured more than a few weapons. It was all set, and it was all going to go.

But then they came to school and found it surrounded by riot cops. They didn't expect that, at least not so soon.

Isaac knew something would happen, something would always happen, but the sight of these shielded guards just standing there around the school silent as statues seemed to make people realize that this was all real and not just play anymore, and it made the revolution appear to implode before it even began. A good number of the kids they'd thought were a part of their army had not shown up for classes. Harlan and Danny, though they were both enthusiastic, were fighting. Rich Miller sat silent at his corner of the table looking as if he were having a nervous breakdown. It was bad, and it was getting worse. Thank God Yoshiko Kanbe stood up.

"It doesn't matter what happened or who gave in," Yoshiko interjected, "we'll just have to deal with that as it comes. We're here now and we've got our supplies and our people, this is our last chance."

As always, Yoshiko seemed to defuse the situation as quickly as it had arisen. Isaac considered him to be his best friend, and since he was popular as something of a class clown, it helped in rallying support from much of the general population. He didn't always have much to give in terms of ideas, but when it came down to it...

"Yoshiko's right," Isaac said, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses further up his nose, "we've got everything set up. We've got all our people in line, all those we could at least, and Iago snuck the weapons in, right?"

"Yeah," Danny said, "he's got the guns. We've got them all around with people I know we can trust. People who want to start something."

"And McIntyre?"

"He's got a good number of Molotovs and pipe bombs ready for when you need 'em," Danny shot back with a confident grin. Although Isaac personally couldn't stand Nick McIntyre, borderline nutso active-anarchist that he was, there was a time and place when you needed to know someone who knew how to blow things up, and he was thankful that Danny was willing to act as the middleman.

"And you informed the news crews?" Isaac inquired as he turned his attentions back to his friend.

"Done and done man," Yoshiko shot back with a confident grin. "I told them we were having a rally to honor our troops killed overseas fighting the terrorists in Scandinavia, they said they'd be right down. Once they get a look at some blood, well, you know they'll be all over it."

"Then it has to be now," Isaac said definitively. Seeing that he had their attention, the boy tried to psyche himself up for what he had to do. _Come on, you've been practicing this speech in your head. Just cue the motivational music and an American flag waving in the background and you'll look like a hero._

"Look, we all knew what was going to happen going into this. We are living in a time when our very rights as Americans are in question. I have said it before and I'll say it again, America is a country built on rebellion and revolution, but it's become a place of stagnant oppression where violence is lauded and freedom is an illusion. Ralph, funny scruffy little Ralph, you all knew him, you all might not have liked him, but he was one of the good guys. He's one of the ones who shouldn't have been sucked into this but was. He died for no good reason, but let's make sure he will be remembered. Odds are that by the end of the day we'll be on our way to a small cell on some obscure Caribbean island, on the end of a noose hanging from a streetlight about fifty feet away from here, or worse, on a plane headed for Bunazca."

They all shuddered at the mention of the name. It was a place for youthful delinquents and dissidents alike, and it had enough urban legends and tall tales spinning about its conditions that some of them had to be true. Rich seemed to be particularly disturbed by the prospect, though he'd usually looked like he was sick to his stomach, so they ignored him.

"I have to know, here and now, that all of you are going to be with me on this. We may not make a difference today, but I know we are going to open some eyes. If we're lucky we might even catch the attention of The Raptors. It's a long shot, but if we can hold this out, we may find some support."

They all responded positively to this remark, even Rich seemed to give a half-hearted grunt. The Raptors were a well known anti-Battle Royale terrorist organization who had been waging a guerilla war against the big wigs for nearly four years. Every so often they'd send a video tape to the major news organizations, and the government would say they were closer to catching them, and yet the attacks would still come. He knew it was a long shot, but Isaac still dreamed of getting their support. _You want their support, or do you want them to rescue you? There's no way this can go well and you know it._

"And if they give us hell, well, let's just send some of it right back at them. Are you with me?"

Silence reigned around the table as Isaac looked from one to the next.

"I'm with you boss," Yoshiko said with a shaky, if still confident, smile. He put his hand in the middle of the table.

"Same here man," Danny responded as he too put his hand in the middle. Miranda and Sophia Apollinar, an average looking half-Hispanic, half-Greek girl who Isaac had known since nursery school, were soon to follow. Despite the fact that his reputation and even his life was at stake, even Harlan Musgrove followed suit.

All that remained was Rich Miller.

"Well, how 'bout it Miller?" Harlan asked.

The boy looked like he was about to split in half he shook so much.

"I... I..."

_Just say it, just say it, you can do it, you're not that great a coward are you? Just do it man, just do it, tell them what you did, tell them what you did and maybe they might end this madness. Just tell them what you did, don't get sick, just tell them to stop, tell them it's your fau-_

As thoughts of mixed guilt and fear rushed through the boys head, he slapped a hand over his mouth and sprinted for the bathroom. In moments his breakfast would be spilling out all over Amberlaine High School Library's bathroom floor, but in the meantime he was glad that he didn't have to speak.

After an awkward moment, Yoshiko cut in, "Should we wait for him?"

"No," Isaac said, "I don't think he's going to be good for this. It's our go now."

With that, the boy reached into his jacket.

"All right," he said as he pulled the orange bandana from his pocket and watched his partners do the same, "in the name of those who come before us and those who will follow; in the path of rebels like Shylock and Rourke and The Owl we do this for peace. In the name of Ralph Fogal, we do this so he won't be forgotten."

In unison, the six revolutionaries tied the colors of rebellion around their foreheads.

* * *

As the six walked purposefully from the library, those who had followed them in followed them out. They walked across the quad, picking up dribs and drabs of students here and there, some already carrying jury-rigged weapons. A few of the jocks could be seen wielding baseball bats and field hockey sticks, while other students could be seen carrying simple pairs of scissors, box cutters or even heavy stones. About fifty had gathered by the time they reached the school fountain, which due to the fact that it was long frozen over had since been wrapped with colorful ribbons and bits of holly to celebrate the holidays. Standing, sitting and milling around the fountain despite the temperature were many of the school's more criminal element. Most of them were independent thugs and petty thieves, though a few full-fledged gang members could be found in their midst. Isaac could only note with a smile that everyone had some form of orange wrapped about their person as he watched Danny approach the leader of the motley band by the fountain.

"Where's the shit?" Danny asked quickly.

Iago Cilek, the leader of those around the fountain, was an intimidating figure to say the very least. Though physically he wasn't much, tall and bony with a persistent buzz cut and a face that looked like it could neither be properly shaved or grown into facial hair, he still had a certain aura of fear about him. Despite his size he was a well known fighter around school who wasn't afraid to fight dirty and to the bone. He had connections to all sorts of people with criminal records, and rumors were that he'd never technically been arrested because he had photographs of the chief of police in a rather compromising position with a golden retriever. He had access to guns, who from nobody wanted to know, yet all the same he never seemed to favor them. No, the boy much preferred his knives.

"I got it right here," Iago said with a yellow, tobacco-stained grin. He flung a duffel bag into Danny's arm, and even through the half-opened zipper, Isaac knew it to hold no fewer than eight pistols of varying sizes. The boy spoke fast, addressing all those who looked nothing like him with such rapidity and conviction that he may as well have been a guerilla leader.

"I'll spin this for you quick; I couldn't get a lot of rounds so whatever shots you make you better make sure they blow some pigs brains all over the fucking ground, because there ain't a lot to go around here. I got some odds and ends with my folks here and a few more scattered about all hodgepodge if anyone needs and asks nicely. You just be sure that whoever you drop you get their weapon and turn it on the next fucker who comes up atcha, ya dig?"

"We dig," Isaac replied as he thrust his hand in and withdrew a snub-nosed police-issue revolver.

"You know the cue?" Danny asked a squat boy with messy red hair.

"I know it," Nick McIntyre replied, "Just give the word and I'll send up some sky flowers lickety split. You said I can make them burn right?"

"Burn them if you can make sure not to get anyone else," Danny said, "we need all our bodies unhurt, OK?"

"Okay," Nick said with a wide, nearly gleeful smile. Isaac doubted that Nick would show that much consideration, but knew that there was little he could do to control the situation. If the cops came in with big guns or vehicles, they'd need some of the artillery that Nick could provide.

"All right," Isaac said as he pulled the megaphone from his backpack and then tossed the bag to the ground, "Everyone, on me!"

They approached the south exit to the school as a mob of nearly one hundred, still gathering more bodies as they walked. Many students who wanted away ducked into buildings (though for some it would do no good), while others looked by curiously as Isaac began to get loud on the megaphone.

"THE PEOPLE WANT A REVOLUTION! THE PEOPLE WANT A REVOLUTION! THE PEOPLE WANT A REVOLUTION!" he shouted, getting the others to follow in kind.

As they approached the south exit of the school, the riot police who stood there suddenly jerked to attention. Almost twenty wide, they blocked the exit with their shields held high and batons in their free hands. Twenty feet away from the cops, Isaac bade his army of more than one hundred now to stop.

The tension between the two sides was so thick you could barely have cut through it with a machete. Mutterings and curses could be heard from the students as they snarled quietly at the police, while the riot cops stood as solidly and powerful as a phalanx.

"STUDENT DISSENTERS!" a voice echoed from some unseen officer on a loudspeaker behind the riot cops, "YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF THE THORNTON PROTECTION ACT! DISPERSE OR WE WILL BE FORCED TO DISPERSE YOU! ANY CHOOSING TO RESIST WILL BE DEALT WITH ACCORDINGLY!"

Though they would only later know that the majority of these words were a lie, this declaration riled up the student marchers even further. They threw insults and curses towards the shielded shock troopers. One even threw a stone which bounced harmlessly off of one of the plastic shields. Those whose attentions weren't taken over entirely by the madness with the battle to come were even aware that a slight flurry of snow had begun to fall.

Knowing that the time had come and that they no longer had any reason to stall, Isaac Freemantle gave the signal.

"AMBERLAINE TITANS RULE!" he shouted through his megaphone. At that, Nick McIntyre set off a small bottle rocket that sailed almost sixty feet into the air before exploding in a burst of brilliantly green sparks. Though the police may have looked at it in confusion, those on the ground who were in on the march knew what it meant: it was time to unleash hell.

"DOWN NOW!" Isaac yelled, getting most of his army to have some semblance of order as they hit the deck. Nick heaved what looked like a foot long bit of pipe end over end toward their captors. Though few knew what it actually meant, those who did instinctively covered their ears as the bewildered cops had little time to react.

Even though it was poorly made, the pipe bomb did its bit. It exploded just behind the shield line, riddling the government thugs with bits of broken nails and ball bearings. The officer it landed nearest to was blown quite nearly in half, bits of his body and innards spraying all over his few uninjured comrades. In all it would later be deemed impossible to tell how many in the shield line were killed in the explosion, but to those fighting them it didn't matter. The line was broken.

"ATTACK! ATTACK!" Isaac yelled into his megaphone, "SHOW THEM NO MERCY, THEY WON'T GIVE YOU ANY, KILL THEM ALL, KILL THEM ALL, KILL THEM ALL!!"

The army of more than a hundred swarmed over the dozen or so officers who were still standing, pushing, kicking, beating and stabbing them with little abandon as they made a break to get into the street. Isaac saw two kids grab one of them by the arms, just in time for Iago to mercilessly slit the defenseless cops throat with a spray of arterial blood. The boy looked positively delighted, even despite the fact that the cops blood drenched his face.

With all the pushing and shoving and bloodshed that they could manage, the ragtag army of rebels spilled out into the street, running over sidewalks and jumping on the roofs of police cars. There were more riot cops in the street, though with considerably less order, and even those who were on the other school exits began to join the fray. One, then two tear gas canisters were fired into the mix, sending some students astray while others fought on despite the blinding pain. Seeing one cop down Sophia with a powerful blow from his shield, Isaac mercilessly walked up beside the grown man and shot him in the head. The officer fell to the ground, shaking uncontrollably as blood and brain matter fell out of his ruined head.

Isaac extended his hand and helped the wounded girl to her feet.

"Thanks," she said, ducking down with a bit of a yelp as gunshots filled the air.

Looking around, Isaac could see that others had followed his cue and were beginning to use their guns on the riot officers. Most didn't know how to shoot that well and proved reasonably ineffective, and even those who did often found themselves hitting the officers in their armored chests. Still, some did manage to get valuable head or knee shots, taking some of the screaming police officers down to the ground.

Watching as Nick flung a Molotov cocktail at one of the riot officers, shattering it against the shield and engulfing the screaming cop in liquid flames, Isaac only suddenly began to feel unnerved. It was going well, seemingly too well. They were beating the officers back, which was good, and yet seemed too good. The cops weren't using deadly force, and aside from some good baton hits and a couple of tear gas canisters, they seemed not to be putting up the strongest of fights. It seemed like they were just trying to hold the line, making sure that the fight was kept to school grounds for some reason. Something was wrong about this victory, and yet he didn't yet know what it was.

* * *

His answer would come less than six minutes later.

More had joined their army now, some who had hidden in classes and even some people from town had joined the fray. There were cheers around the school as more and more of the riot police were routed out and taken down. Some of them were even being hanged up on street lights, like they were prone to do to stragglers in riots. Isaac even found himself pleasantly surprised to see his friend Basim joining the seething mass of warriors, as earlier he had said he wouldn't out of "not wanting to fucking die" _(that's a direct quote)_. The two had just begun to exchange pleasantries when they began to hear screams.

Isaac watched as some of his army began to run back towards the school as even more screams filled the air. Grabbing the nearest runner he could, Isaac shook the girl (Alyssa he was pretty sure her name was) by the shoulders.

"What is it?" he asked.

"The army, the army's here, they're shooting people!" she shouted before her boyfriend grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her with him. For the briefest of moments Isaac considered following her, but ultimately he decided against it. _This is what you expected, this is what you were looking for. Your chance to be a martyr. You can do this Isaac, you can do this, and you will be remembered forever._

Instead of running away, the boy approached the direction the screams were coming from. Basim followed him for maybe six steps.

"Come on man, let's get the fuck out of here!" Basim yelled over the din of war and humanity.

"You go," Isaac said quickly, "I have to see it, then I'll be right behind you!"

Slapping his friend in an understanding manner on the shoulder, Basim set off in a sprint. Isaac continued his approach, looking curiously for the army. _If they're shooting people, why can't I hear it?_

He found his answer as Randal Hudson came stumbling right at him. A large boy with a tie-dyed shirt visible through his open heavy winter jacket, Isaac found himself ready to ask what was going on. Instead, Randal fell over. A dart was sticking out of the back of his leg. _A dart? They're tranquilizing people?_

Stealthily making his way across the quad, Isaac peered around the school's north entrance to see that some of his people were still fighting, though now their enemy wore a drab green uniform. Their faces were covered with heavy, dark gas masks as they fired air rifles with a muted PFOOT! at those few who still stood resisting. Those they hit with the tranquilizer darts were on their feet for a few moments more, falling to the ground shortly thereafter as the potion coursing through their veins began to kick in. Isaac watched with morbid curiosity as the soldiers grouped together, some of them looking at a laptop and pointing at people on the ground. Some of them were being picked up and loaded into the back of a truck. Others pointed at had soldiers approach their prone and defenseless bodies, mercilessly stabbing them to death as they lay unconscious.

"What the fuck?" Isaac asked himself as he looked to the scene with bizarre curiosity. The soldier in charge waved a hand in the air, sending units toward the school. Seemingly seconds too late, Isaac began to sprint back onto the school grounds as he saw one of the units coming his way. A dull thud slammed into his back, and he cried out in pain. Barely three seconds later, the pain was a dull numbness, and all feeling left the lower half of his body. He fell in a heap, his left glasses lens cracking as his head bounced off a wooden bench. The boy rolled onto his back, vaguely aware that he was staring at the sky as consciousness began to flee him.

_Hey, it's snowing. Looks like it's going to be coming down pretty good..._

Three blurred shadows loomed over Isaac's field of vision. His vision going, the boy could only go on what he heard to know what was truly going on.

"Bag or bleed?" one asked in a very muffled voice through his gas mask.

There was a pause as one looked at something on his wrist. Then he spoke in a muffled voice through his mask.

"Bag. He's on the list."

As consciousness left Isaac Freemantle for good, the revolutionary was only vaguely aware that these three figures had lifted him off the ground.

* * *

Retching for perhaps the fourth time in half an hour, Rich Miller curled himself up next to the toilet he hadn't left since their meeting broke up. He'd heard the gunfire, the explosions, the screams, and he shuddered at the very thought of the war going on outside. In the beginning, he had joined Isaac out of respect and because it sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Always considering himself a patriot, Rich believed and followed what Isaac had said.

But as it got down to it, he'd begun to lose his nerve. Initially he thought he could face death, but as it came closer the fear just began to take over. _I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die..._

He shuddered and shrieked with every explosion and shot outside, finding himself oddly comforted when they had stopped.

Then there was a thudding sound, some screams in the library. Some yells. Someone took two gunshots, then there was silence. Rich huddled down by the toilet, hoping beyond all hope that he would suddenly turn invisible, or at the very least go ignored.

Instead, the bathroom door was kicked open. Soldiers wielding rifles aimed bright lights at Rich as he cowered in the corner of the darkened bathroom.

"I was good, I was good!" he shrieked quickly, "I didn't do anything wrong, I stopped, I made good, I was good to you, I'm a patriot really!"

"Are you Richard Miller?" one of them asked mechanically.

"Yes!" the boy shrieked almost happily. _Thank God, they know what I did, they know I'm good, everything's going to be all right!_

PFOOT!


	2. Behind The Scenes: Beginnings

* * *

**Behind the Scenes:**

**Beginnings**

* * *

There was very little that separated Grover's Mill, Michigan from most other small towns of the mid-western United States. Its main street held all your average businesses, the hardware store, the general store, the soda fountain and good old Tom's Pie and Burger, catering to truckers and high school students alike with, as they'd boast, the finest bacon cheeseburger (a lie) and best Dutch apple pie (almost a lie) in the state.

Follow the old highway north a bit and you'll find a whole lot of trees, snow, and eventually Canada, though if you look closely enough there's a few old farms still squirreled away. To the south you'll find the mill, the town's last major industry, its smokestacks long since died and now laying dormant. Beyond Main Street to the east you'll find the nicer residential area of town, a place that around one hundred families called home, as well as the elementary and middle schools. To the west, you'd find some of the less than nice houses, a scattering of odd shops and businesses that didn't quite fit on Main Street (the roller rink, Mr. Romero's taxidermy store, the video store with it's ADULT section if you looked behind the beaded curtain), as well as the two-story high school with its six bright yellow school buses lined up in the parking lot out back. Ironically enough, the Grover's Mill Community Church could be seen across the way from the video store. It's stained glass saints looked vaguely like people if you spied them at just the right angle.

To the northeast of town you'd find Hunter's Lake, a small body of water that allowed for a bit of extra business come the summer months, as it's cabins could be rented for a fair price, while during the winter when the lake froze over they catered to those brave enough to trudge into Northern Michigan in sub-arctic temperatures for ice skating and a great view of a whole lot of white. These nice cabins only slightly hid the remains of the old summer camp that burned down back in '80, for if you looked decently enough you'd still find some hidden treasure (or not, like that time Denny Hallenback found those braces still attached to some kids teeth) buried in the undergrowth.

Though the town was simple, if you were to take a look at it in December of 2007 you would notice a few odd things about it. Most notably, it had been entirely abandoned. In a town where people walking the streets at all hours of day even in the coldest of winters was hardly an odd sight, this vacancy would appear odd to anyone who knew the town. In late 2006 the government had claimed it as eminent domain and spent the next year transforming it into what would be the site of perhaps the greatest game show in American history. Thousands of cameras and microphones were put into every nook and cranny the town had to offer, able to catch about 93 of what would transpire in the game to come.

The greatest construction in the wake of the town's closure happened around its perimeter. Due to security concerns in recent times (particularly The Raptors' repeated attempts) the facility constructed for this game would be borderline impregnable. The towns perimeter was surrounded by what the production crew had dubbed "The Briar Patch", a field of razor wire with an average thickness of about sixty feet, heated with a low level electric field that would discourage those trying to cut through while also melting whatever snow would accumulate over the course of the game. Then they had to build down, with a concrete wall essentially built fifteen feet into the earth to discourage anyone looking to dig.

Like silent sentries surrounding the town, snipers posts would be manned around the clock, set up about one hundred yards apart from each other to keep an effective net around the town preventing any unauthorized entries or exits (though the collars would definitely help with the latter).

All of run from the fortified command post constructed a mile south from town, it would seem an awful lot of effort for one game show, but for the Battle Royale Program there was no such thing as too much.

* * *

He'd always found waiting the worst part. It was true that everything was going to plan, it always did, but there was always that bit of doubt. No plan, no matter how foolproof it sounds, is perfect. That much he knew, that much he'd always accounted for, and that much he always had to keep under consideration. Particularly with all the threats they had had, there was always the worry that something could go wrong. Any plan involving as many factors where things could go wrong as he had under way was in essence a crapshoot.

But so far it'd all gone off without a hitch.

The site was set up; he'd walked road around the Briar Patch just to make sure himself. It was clean, it was pristine, it would look great.

A light snow was falling, so the environment would look perfect. Blood turned up bright red on snow, it would be a great image. _The Brit's going to love that one now, isn't he?_

The men were trained and in their positions. Even the civilians working the game, unreliable as they were, were perfectly prepared and ready.

Technicians said that all the cameras, mikes and sensors were in working order.

All Col. Morton Kinsey needed was his stars.

The plane was just minutes away and only when he had confirmation that it was on the ground would he feel at ease. _They're growing soft after all. They said they would attack, but they must have chickened out. Cowards. Call yourselves Raptors? You will never, ever disrupt this game..._

The Raptors... they'd been a problem for too long. Too many times they had threatened action against the game, and they'd only ever been prevented by the slimmest of margins. A bombing here, an assassination there, a forced product recall, their actions were varied and rather effective when they worked. Thankfully most of the time they had been thwarted, though there were still a few successful attacks. After their mass bombing in Atlanta, Coca Cola withdrew as one of the games sponsors. There was no denying that that was a major blow to the game. Their harassment campaign was thorough, scaring some sponsors and manufacturers to withdraw support from the game (though with a fair amount of coercion and threats of force, the United States government was quite capable of getting things back on track). They allegedly led the breakout of over forty prisoners from the Bunazca prison camp, but Kinsey was more than willing to bet they were just taking the credit. Hell, they even almost succeeded in assassinating Ashley Vasquez, the game's first surviving winner! The girl took four pistol shots center mass and just barely survived. _Thank God that girl's built like a cockroach, nothing'll ever kill her._

And then there were the disappearances... If there was one thing that made the Raptors even moderately frightening in Kinsey's eyes (and being a battle-hardened officer, he was proud of how little did scare him), it was how easily they could make people disappear. Executives from three companies behind the Battle Royale program had simply disappeared off the face of the Earth, only to have pieces of them turn up in the mail weeks later with letters from the Raptors claiming responsibility. _And then there's Jack's grandson. Kid was an asshole, but didn't deserve what they did to him..._

The Colonel took another drink from his bottle of sparkling water. There always seemed to be something on the verge of giving him an ulcer, and it was getting harder all the time. If there weren't attacks, there were protests to be put down. If there weren't protests to be put down, there were technical issues. If there weren't technical issues, there were problems with the cast.

The casting... that was always the most iffy part. You can get all the game factors you want in place, but in the end the best programs are truly made great by the participants chosen for them. That was the best advice Gen. Jack Thornton had given Kinsey when handing over the reins of the program when he went to the White House. _It's all in the casting, you get the players, they bring the audience._

They always tried their best to get the best casts they could, and true, in the beginning it had been something of trial and error. The first one, though it was a classic, was still boring by most of the more recent viewers' standards because it wasn't what they would call "exciting". It may have been the fact that at the time the big wigs really had no idea what they were doing at the time, or that the winner "died" so shortly thereafter, but though it was a classic people were beginning to trash it for its primitive origins and lack of twists. Kinsey couldn't help but feel a little pissed at that, as they'd worked their ass off for it. _Still, that one's not your fault, is it? That's Jacks problem now._

Then there was the second season, what a fiasco that was. No one could have predicted that a cast from Texas, _Texas_ of all places would have decided to get up and up revolutionary on the program just waiting until their belts would blow up. That was a mistake.

From then on they began working on scouting missions, actually scoping schools out instead of just picking ones at random. They would get psychological profiles of students from school counselors to get some good preliminary casts down, whittle down the schools by which had the greatest variety in students (to appeal to the most parts of the country) and by the relationships of the casts that they had in mind. The tighter and more vicious the relationships the better they'd figured, as the closer you got people, the more personal it would get. Throw in a few wild cards, some who just look flat out pretty that the people would enjoy watching and some who liked to rabble-rouse and then the show would be great.

With that formula had come the glory seasons. Season 3 had their first surviving winner with Ashley Vasquez, the true crowd pleaser. She still graced commercials even four years later, still milking her fifteen minutes of fame for all it was worth. _And why not, she's probably the highest earning celebrity in the states_. Season 4 out of West Virginia was easily the bloodiest and perhaps the most beloved by fans for its great winner, while seasons 5 and 6 out of Maine and South Dakota respectively were true crowd pleasers. Their casts weren't all that innovative, but some of the twists they had introduced were Kinsey's idea, and some of them were even borderline beloved. That much he took pride in.

2007 on the other hand, was a year Kinsey knew he'd feel best with once it was over. The big wigs wanted to do a winter edition of the program to get people killing in the snow, but all the same they didn't want to get rid of their summer edition lest they lose their ratings. _Why not do two seasons in one year, that shouldn't be very hard, _they said.

Bullshit. That's what it was. Bureaucratic bullshit, but it was bullshit that can't be avoided. When the big guy says jump, you say where.

So, he had been forced to push it to the limit and focus all resources toward getting two programs ready in one year. While construction was being arranged all around Grover's Mill to make it a Battle Royale compliant town, Kinsey had been supervising the setting up of a decent-sized portion of the Florida Everglades for Season 7. Then came the problems with Florida, from two contestants accidentally being eaten by alligators (that one was a blow, since one of them easily had the potential for being the greatest killer in game history), to the bland characters (the big wigs wanted more pretty people and sacrificed game quality for it), and the high number of suicides (because they didn't search the psych profiles ahead of time all that well). But the worst of it was Otis Shylock.

Otis. Fucking. Shylock.

If there was a bane to Col. Kinsey's existence, its name was Otis Shylock.

Otis. Fucking. Shylock.

He was a wild card to begin with, but the higher ups said it would be interesting to have a kid who used to be a circus performer. They said it would be good for ratings. Instead, they got the biggest pain in the ass the game ever had. In addition to his bizarre running monologues into the microphone, he was incredibly resistant to the game. Breaking cameras. Refusing to fight. Always sitting just outside of the cameras view. He seemed to take it as his sole goal to mess with the game, and not in the idealistic rebel sense, but in the sense of someone who just messed around for the sake of messing with the system. Since he never technically did anything all that wrong, they couldn't even blow his belt.

And then he escaped.

When designing the explosive belts for the game, they had never really accounted for having a trained contortionist play. One minute he was in the game, the next he was hanging his belt on a camera. Then he disappears into the glades, grabs a rifle, offs the soldiers after him and disappears without a trace. He'd not been seen since, though occasionally _"OtiS was Here IdioTs"_ graffiti would turn up in random parts of the country.

"Asshole," Kinsey muttered under his breath as he rubbed his eyes. _Thank God we're going with the collars this year. Japs had the right idea all along._

At least they could get by as calling him a member of The Raptors, offering a price on his head as high on the ones on all theirs. In the end, that'd probably help them catch hi-

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

The officer fumbled for the cradle of his phone, cursing softly as he slammed his knee into the base of his desk. _That's going to smart later._

"Kinsey speaking. Half hour? Good, thank you very much."

Finally deciding that it would be time to break out the bottle of brandy, Col. Kinsey sat back in his seat with a feeling of nothing but relief. _Everything's going to plan after all, this is good, real good..._

* * *

The men were restless. However, unlike the restless energy that permeated the library at Amberlaine High School, this one was a positive, excited energy. There was no dread, rather, this nervous energy came with the excitement of seeing what would come next. Almost two hundred soldiers, technicians and others associated with the direct filming of the Eighth Annual United States Battle Royale sat on benches in the underground amphitheatre (resembling a large college lecture hall) chatting and waiting for the usual pep talk that preceded the game. A beach ball bounced idly around the room, smuggled in by Technician Dinh. He laughed with that wide, crooked-toothed mouth of his as the ball bounced his way.

The civilian technician quickly bounced it enthusiastically into the back of PFC. Stephen Dietrich's head. The sniper from Arizona looked back with a surly glower, toying with the ball in his hands. With half a grin, he pulled his K-BAR knife from its sheath around his waist and held it threateningly to the balls face.

"Aw come on Tucson," Sgt. Barry Charon said enthusiastically as he snatched the ball from the soldier sitting behind him and tossed it across the room, "live a little!"

"It's Phoenix," the younger soldier replied with a soft grumble.

"What?" Charon shot back with only half attention (quite clearly ogling the way Cpl. Andersen's jacket accentuated her bountiful chest).

"Phoenix, you know, like the bird?" Dietrich said simply.

"Not really, no," Charon laughed.

_Of course not you dumb fuck, Dietrich thought._ Of all the people working the game, he looked forward to it perhaps the least. Why? Because of Charon. _Sergeant_ Charon as he'd readily and handily remind you at the drop of a hat. Ever since he'd had that brief appearance in the documentary Behind Battle Royale, Charon had fancied himself a star and more of a braggart than even before. And it was true, for lack of a better word, he was a star. Whenever they were on leave, Charon had more than his share of admirers (despite the fact that he was skinny, gawky and suffered rather heavily from acne even in his mid-20's), and he had a pretty good side business going on with autographed headshots. The thing was, being inside the game didn't stop his boastful nature. If anything, it seemed to accentuate it. He spent all his free time in the barracks trying to sell autographs and hitting on the female soldiers.

Living with him in game time would have been difficult enough, but at least there you could avoid him. However, Dietrich and some new doe-eyed private from Iowa named Toynbee would be essentially locked in a snipers tower with Charon for the next three days with only temporary relief for sleep. As far as Dietrich was concerned, it was his definition of hell.

_Keep your sidearm handy. If it gets real bad, you can end it quick, ya know? Hell, you could even call it an accident if you have to; you've always had trouble with the VP70..._ He couldn't help but laugh softly to himself. _Well, you can dream at least._

"A-TEN-HUT!"

The harsh, snapping voice of Lt. Holmes blasted through the hall as all the soldiers quickly stood and snapped to attention. The civilian technicians were not legally obligated to do so, but knowing better of the situation they did anyway.

Seconds later, Col. Kinsey and his second in command Maj. Hastings entered the room and walked to the podium at the front. He stood in front of the massive American flag hung against the far wall looking every bit the great American hero. Many of the civilians were looking around for the other big wig, the Brit, but he was nowhere to be found. Probably double and triple-checking the systems to make sure there really weren't any fuckups.

"Be seated," Kinsey said calmly into the podium's microphone. Waiting for the activity to stop (and the beach ball to finish rolling down the steps in the center of the hall), Kinsey took the note cards from his jacket pocket and began to read. For all intents and purposes as head of the game he was never really required to interact with those under his command, but Kinsey had never abided by that philosophy. He liked rolling up his sleeves, getting down and dirty in the trenches with the men. At the beginning of every game he'd presided over, Kinsey made a point of delivering a speech to all the men who served under him.

"Good evening men, women, civilians."

This one got a laugh going throughout the room.

"I just want to announce that in less than twenty minutes, the plane carrying most of our stars will be touching down in less than twenty minutes."

More cheering throughout the room. Kinsey smiled.

"Yes, and with it I just want to get a few housekeeping announcements out of the way. First, there have been threats on this game from various terrorist organizations, The Raptors, Precinct 13, even some from across the pond with the Blue Dragon Boys and Wild Seven. Just treat these like any of the threats we always get and don't worry too much about them. Still, for all of you out there in the sniper towers, keep as many eyes outside the game as you do inside. Keep frosty. If you see anything suspicious, report it immediately."

A fair amount of nods and mutterings went throughout the room.

"Next up, we heard some complaints from some of the female contestants in Florida that they were feeling a particular physical discomfort in the wake of their processing. So, when cleaning and processing the players, keep your flies up; we don't want any of the girls not playing with all they've got because someone decided to give them a good time while they were knocked out. That means you Charon."

"I make no promises!" the gangly sergeant three rows from the front shot back jokingly.

Laughter rippled throughout the room as even Kinsey couldn't help but chuckle.

"All right, all right," Kinsey said into the microphone as he got the soldiers to quiet down, "still a couple more announcements. Remember, this cast was hand picked due to their particularly rebellious nature, so be prepared to replace cameras left and right here."

Though they all knew about it coming in, there were still moans from the maintenance crews. Nobody liked going into the game if they could afford to, because there was always the chance that some of the smarter kids would try to pull something. Like killing them.

"I know, I know, it's just something to look out for. Note to those of you in charge of maintenance of our guest stars' trailers; Grendel has complained about a lack of Doritos, so whoever was in charge of the ordering on that one really dropped the ball. Scylla though does want to thank you for the cleanliness of her trailer and the array of the adult periodicals."

He flipped through his cards and saw that he had reached the end. It was time to end things on a high note. If he hadn't had one replaced after the war, he would've taken a knee like a coach before a big game. Instead, he just set the note cards down and looked out to his men. Kinsey knew the words, the speech was still prepared, but the gesture of dropping the cards brought it down onto a personal level that he knew they would appreciate.

"All right men, let me just lay it out for you simply. We've done this seven times before, and though I know we've had our fair share of problems, I just want to thank you all for making this game the greatest in the world. There are those out there who will criticize what you do here today, and to them let me just say nuts!"

This remark got a bunch of laughs and applause from the men. Someone tossed the beach ball back into the air to another ring of applause.

"Tonight we will prove those unpatriotic cowards wrong as we deliver the greatest game we've ever had. It will be bloody, it will be vicious, and it will be some damn good TV!"

Cheers and even more uproarious applause filled the room. Taking this as his cue, Col. Kinsey turned smartly on his feet and saluted the flag. Following in kind, all soldiers and civilians present in the room stood at fast attention with their salutes (or in the case of the civilians, hands over their hearts) firmly locked in place. With great precision, the entire crew working behind the Eighth Annual United States Battle Royale chanted in unison.

"ONE PEOPLE, ONE COUNTRY, ONE LEADER!"

"ONE PEOPLE, ONE COUNTRY, ONE LEADER!"

"ONE PEOPLE, ONE COUNTRY, ONE LEADER!"

At that, Kinsey turned back around to face his men. Looking into all of their eager, enthusiastic faces, he felt that old paternal instinct kick in ever so slightly. Though he'd never been able to see eye to eye with his own kids, he would always admit to seeing the soldiers serving under him as something akin to family.

"And hey," he said finally into the microphone, "let's be careful out there."


	3. Behind The Scenes: Processing

* * *

**Behind the Scenes:**

**Processing**

* * *

Though nobody in the viewing audience at home would ever be able to appreciate the work performed by all those behind the scenes of the Battle Royale program, all the workers who took part in it easily understood it as an incredibly involved process. The journey from capture to contestant required multiple steps.

First, the contestants underwent processing. In a secure facility (this time the Situs Corporation Building in Detroit), their records were first checked and double-checked to make sure that the proper contestants (and necessary alternates) had been chosen for the game. Though significant research had already been done into what they believed would make the ideal cast, further investigation had to be done to make sure that those decisions were ultimately what would make the best cast.

After the contestant pool had been checked out, they then went through a series of rigorous medical checkups. Usually this was done to make sure that everyone was in as peak a physical condition as possible and would therefore make for the best game possible (even though they did have to keep a few token under and overweight contestants just to make sure it didn't appear as if they discriminated), but considering the more violent than usual capture of the Amberlaine students, making sure that as few were injured as possible was key. Unfortunately, some of their better contestants (namely football captain Jeffrey Crane and class vice president Adriana Green) had received broken bones in the capturing process and had to be liquidated.

On the other hand, there were also three contestants who had come up with what they dubbed "questionable medical status" that were ultimately passed. Randal Hudson was deemed "grossly obese" given his weight of 325 lbs., but considering his great overall muscle mass and stature it was believed that they should give him a chance. Glen Counihan had a short-arm cast on his left wrist, but since his record said he was right-handed it was not deemed a hazard and he was passed into the game. Finally, there was Lakisha Childs, who by all rights would not have been passed due to her asthma, was passed through because those damn fools at the Asthma Association of America had been placing pressure on the big wigs for some time to give equal representation within the program. After three years of complaining, the big wigs finally gave in and let her pass. Kinsey was more than willing to admit that because of her asthma and the conditions of this particular game that she wouldn't last very long, but at least they would have one less organization complaining about unfairness within the game's casting processes.

Once the contestants were passed medically, they were kept under sedation for a period of two days before the games beginning. This was done for two main reasons. The primary reason was because it allowed for the promotion of the game. It was hard to get a cast by surprise when a massive ad campaign was going on, it tended to put the students on edge (not that it made a difference this time), and more than one day was necessary to make sure the appropriate level of media saturation was achieved. Secondly, it allowed for a certain amount of recovery in the cast from whatever minor injuries they may have received in the procurement process. From a practical standpoint, this was perhaps the most dangerous part of the pre-game process, as keeping the contestants sedated for two days was always a tricky process. Overdoses had happened a few times before, and though they had the best medical staff monitoring them at all times, they still did happen from time to time. _Thank God for alternates. _Shaved, fed, bathed and tended for, the future contestants would have the best care that money could buy before making their television debuts.

Then came the transportation phase, the one that in this game had given Col. Kinsey the biggest trouble. Typically they would put the contestants in a series of cargo containers and ship them in via trucks, but the Raptors had threatened to take anything going into this game in an effort to liberate the contestants. It was probably an idle threat, and they would be heavily guarded either way, but given how wily the Raptors tended to be it was decided not to take any chances. So, instead they put the contestants on a C-130 cargo plane and landed them just on the outskirts of town on a quickly constructed runway just to make sure they would arrive (though they did send some fake trucks anyway to see if they could flush out the Raptors; nothing happened).

Upon reaching Grover's Mill, the final steps before being put into the program were completed. Of those who survived the casting process, the final cast was selected (fifty students plus two surprise volunteer players), the four remaining alternate players kept on the side so that they would be able to make the training video. Collars were applied, and they were all given matching Arctic weather clothing to make sure they didn't die of exposure six seconds into the game. Personal effects were placed in their individual bags. Then they just needed loading onto the bus and they were ready for game time.

Once their training video was finished, the game would begin.


	4. Contestant Roster

**Roster of Students Taken from Amberlaine High School**

_**December 19, 2007**_

**B1:** Miller, Rich

**G1:** Bell, Mallory

**B2:** Counihan, Glen

**G2:** Rawlings, Kerry

**B3:** Chidester, Eugene

**G3:** Childs, Lakisha

**B4:** Diaz, Hugo

**G4:** Golden, Stacey

**B5:** Wood, Ruben

**G5:** Miike, Amber

**B6:** Bautista, Carlos

**G6:** Apollinar, Sophia

**B7: **Epstein, Amos

**G7:** Cruz, Misty

**B8:** Haddad, Aziz

**G8:** Serov, Natalya

**B9:** King, Nick

**G9:** Caldwell, Zora

**B10:** Dartanian, CJ

**G10:** Stavros, Gillian

**B11:** Spencer, Calvin

**G11:** Valverde, Phoebe

**B12:** Archer, Shaun

**G12:** Argento, Cynthia

**B13: **Sharafi, Basim

**G13:** Halsey, Diana

**B14:** Luczak, Frank

**G14:** Holland, Madison

**B15:** Wiles, Alan

**G15:** Lennon, Brenda

**B16:** Miike, Jordan

**G16:** Bourne, Sadie

**B17:** Freemantle, Isaac

**G17:** Baldwin, Nicole

**B18:** Ripley, Conrad

**G18:** Marquette, Amanda

**B19:** Hudson, Randal

**G19:** Hewitt, Julie

**B20:** Wong, Darwin

**G20:** Morgan, Hera

**B21:** Cilek, Iago

**G21:** Tyler, Jessica

**B22:** Algers, Paxton

**G22:** Fuchs, Kendal

**B23:** Benedict, Vic

**G23:** Fallon, Alyssa

**B24:** McIntyre, Nick

**G24:** Montressor, Christina

**B25:** Doerner, Chad

**G25:** Foucalt, Rene

**B26:** Codename: Grendel

**G26:** Codename: Scylla

**All Alternates Eliminated as Unnecessary**


	5. Orientation

* * *

**Orientation**

* * *

She was the first.

The girl came to slowly, only vaguely realizing that something was off, but not fully comprehending all the same just yet. _Something happened, something bad. I was away? I was, wasn't I? I wasn't drunk this time, I shouldn't feel this way if I wasn't. Just, what the hell is wrong with my head?_

Opening her eyes just slightly, she was blinded by stark whiteness and slammed them shut again. _OK, not yet. Am I in the snow? Some vivid dream? No, it's way too warm here. Something's wrong, but sleep feels so good now, doesn't it?_

Head lolled down and confused enough to realize something was off, she opened her eyes again. She should've been able to see herself, her coat, her Slusho! T-shirt, maybe even her crappy boots. But all she saw was white.

The girl wore white. She came to realize it slowly, and began to feel even more readily that something was amiss. She never wore white. The girl in seat # 45, Girl # 23 to the betting crowd outside the game, Alyssa Fallon to those who knew her best, always wore black. It was practically a scientific fact.

Moderately overweight and with greasy, almost gnarled black hair that fell about her shoulders, Alyssa wasn't the most attractive girl in her class. With a penchant for the dark and macabre (she couldn't quite boast Goth as she just didn't like giving that whole angst crowd any credit) as well as the black and the loud (music that is), she was a girl who was plenty happy the way she was. Her marks in school weren't bad, the band she was in (Backyard Gremlins) was doing as well as any high school garage metal band could expect, and Vic was a half decent boyfriend. She'd done the revolutionary thing just for kicks, figuring on blending into the crowd enough to get away with it while the louder ones got their asses kicked.

She just didn't figure on it leading to her coming to sitting up wearing white.

"What time is it?" she muttered as she tried to reach a hand up to her aching temples. She was jolted from confusion to a state of alarm with the realization that she could not move her hands. She opened her eyes wide, forcing them to adjust almost agonizingly just so she could see what was going on.

Indeed, she was wearing white. The clothes were heavy, almost stifling in this heated room. The room itself seemed to rock slightly, bumping and shuddering softly in a bizarre, almost soundless way. Vic Benedict, a.k.a. Boy # 23, sat next to her. He was sound asleep, a line of drool rolling down his cheek. More people sat across from him to the left, a brief aisle separating them.

Looking at the unconscious Paxton Algers, a.k.a. Boy # 22 across the way, the girl's eye caught a glint of silver around his neck. It looked to be a thick, heavy band with a series of LEDs across the front of it. Right now they all showed green. She tried to look at Vic's neck, but he was placed oddly in his seat.

But the room bumped _(how can a room bump?) _and he fell back in his seat. Her fear was confirmed upon seeing the same collar around his neck. The green LEDs glowed a pleasant (albeit unreasonably bright like those new signals they placed up around town) glow. But there was something about it that looked unreasonably heavy and oppressive. Something... wrong. In the heavy clothing she wore the girl couldn't feel much, but she would have wagered that one of those oppressive metal collars was around her neck as well.

"What the fuck?" the girl asked as she struggled in her seat and found she couldn't really move.

Her hands... they were bound. She looked down, adrenaline beginning to kick in slightly and bring her closer to reality. Her hands were shackled, that much was certain. These weren't handcuffs either, those she knew (not from arrest, more from a personal preference), these were bigger. They were like metal tubes that locked around her wrists and forearms and seemed to be attached to her seat between the legs. She struggled against them, wiggling her gloved fingers in some vain hope of being able to slip through. They held fast.

"Gluug?" someone a few rows ahead muttered. Alyssa began to give into panic. _This is bad, this is really bad, it probably isn't... but it could be couldn't it? We fought them, we fought them and... oh shit. Oh shit. OH SHIT!_

"Vic!" the girl practically shouted to the unconscious boy next to her. He muttered and tried to roll in his sleep, twitching when he found himself constrained.

"Whassaman ere?" he stammered as he groggily fluttered his eye.

"Vic, wake the fuck up," she said as she looked around wildly, "Something really bad is happe-"

She winced in pain as her world was filled with noise. She always liked her music and liked it loud. One time at a Death Leprechaun concert the only standing space she could have managed was within ten feet of an amplifier that was almost as big as Amberlaine High School's biggest school bus. They were loud, the concert was awesome, and though her right ear did bleed for an hour or so and never had quite worked right again (she always wondered whether or not it would've been a good idea to go to a doctor about that one), it never once made her turn things down.

This though... this noise they seemed to alter in such a way that it would pierce through even the most sound-resistant skull like a hot knife through butter. She could feel the bass as it went through her teeth, the trumpets blasting through the back of her head as it kicked into high gear. _You're groggy, this is a wakeup call. This'll get 'em all going._

As she could finally make out the lyrics, the odd rocking in the room finally made sense. The seats, the shape, the feel... they were on a bus.

"_Hey, well I'm the friendly stranger,_

_In the black sedan,_

_Oh won't you hop inside my car?_

_I got pictures, got candy, I am a lovable man,_

_I'd like to take you to the nearest star,_

_I'm your vehicle baby,_

_I'll take you anywhere you wanna go,_

_I'm your vehicle woman,_

_By now I'm sure you know,_

_That I love ya (love you),_

_Need ya (need you),_

_I want to, got to have you child,_

_Great God in heaven, you know I love you..."_

As the situation fully dawned on her, Alyssa could only say two words.

"We're boned."

* * *

As the song blared over the loudspeakers, even those who remained in the deepest of sleeps from the heavy sedative that had just been wearing off were shocked into reality.

"What the hell?"

"Amos, are you here?"

"Where are we?"

"Motherfuck!"

"What is this?"

"OH JESUS!"

"Jessica, where are you?!"

To the slower contestants sitting aboard the bus, confusion still reigned. The disorienting effects of the drugs still held some level of sway, so many were still on the slow and sluggish side. Try and hold it back as much as he might, Jordan Miike, a.k.a. Boy # 16, vomited mightily into the aisle between the seats. Disoriented and in a bit of shock, Kerry Rawlings, a.k.a. Girl # 2, kept trying to stand up.

"I have to go, I gotta take my algebra test!" she kept saying over and over every time she tried to stand. Her bound wrists pulled her down, every time, and she would repeat the process.

Across the aisle from the girl, Rich Miller, a.k.a. Boy # 1 was weeping openly and moaning, "I was good, I was good, I shouldn't be here, I was good!"

Many were crying, some remained stoic, and very few had absolutely no idea what was going on. With all the media they had been deluged with over the last seven years, it would have taken a particularly ignorant person to not know what was going on. They were in a-

"WOO, BATTLE ROYALE MOTHERFUCKERS!" Nick King, a.k.a. Boy # 9 yelled at the top of his lungs. With the music having died down considerably, his ringing report traveled well through the bus and got many to quiet down. The nerd was enthusiastic, hopping up and down in his limited mobility seat like a kid in a candy store.

"OH IT IS ON, THE GREATEST GAME IN THE WORLD, BATTLE ROYALE MOTHERFUCKERS, WOOOOOO!" he yelled again.

"Hey shut the fuck up!" Darwin Wong, a.k.a. Boy # 20, shouted from the back of the bus.

"Say that shit again and I'll kick your ass!" Christina Montressor, a.k.a. Girl # 24 shouted from even further back. If she had had the opportunity, she would have too. Six feet tall and one hundred-sixty pounds of pure muscle, there were very few people Christina would have had a hard time taking down. Despite even what she would have liked everyone to believe, if you looked just closely enough you could make fear out in her harsh blue eyes. _This is bad, this is bad, but you're not dead so something can be done about this. Isaac will know what to do, Isaac always knows what to do. Brother's always got a plan, he knows what he's gonna do, you just find him and take up with him like always and you'll do fine. He is here, right? He could be dead..._

"Isaac, you on this bus?" she shouted over the din of humanity. Part of her was hoping beyond all hope that he was nowhere near here, that he was still somewhere back in Amberlaine _(we are somewhere else, right?)_ and out of all this. But then there was that selfish side, that side that wanted to live and knew that though she was strong she wouldn't be able to take it on all on her own.

"I'm here Chrissy," Isaac Freemantle, a.k.a. Boy # 17's, soothing low voice said from a few rows up in the bus.

"This is bad, ain't it?" Christina shouted again.

"Pretty bad, yeah," Isaac replied.

"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!" Nick K. shouted again to yet another row of jeers (mostly consisting of the words, shut, fuck, up, or some variation thereof). This time indeed the boy quieted down, but it would have done nothing to wipe the smile from his face. He'd been waiting as long as he could remember, hoping beyond all hope that one day he would get a chance to play the game. _It's all happening, it's all happening and it's all you!_

Perhaps the strangest reaction aboard the bus belonged to none other than Iago Cilek, a.k.a. Boy # 21, sitting simply in his seat and looking calmly at the seat in front of him. Everyone was going to hell around him and he couldn't help but feel rather ambivalent about the whole situation. Calmly looking at the ceiling and then eyeing the crowd around him, the boy spoke.

"Well this certainly has turned into an interesting day."

* * *

With the confusion that reigned throughout the bus, very few paid attention to the front. To the casual eye it appeared to be little more than just another bright white wall like those in the rest of the bus. However, a few had noticed that it would move and sway with every bump and every turn that the bus made, rippling like a bright white curtain. Indeed, that proved to be what it was as it pulled to the left and revealed the front of the bus. A thick metal mesh that looked rather similar to chicken wire (though much stronger of course) separated the two soldiers in the front of the bus from all those contestants held in the back. One drove while the other sat rather comfortably in the shotgun seat looking back at the contestants.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO US YOU FUCKS?" Brenda Lennon, a.k.a. Girl # 15 shouted at the top of her lungs to the two soldiers up front. As big an activist as Isaac (and even more of a loudmouth), none of the people aboard the bus found anything odd about this outburst. She always had a knack for futile gestures like this, and even despite the situation those who knew her best had a hard time not laughing even softly at the situation.

All the same, the two soldiers in the front of the bus had absolutely no reaction. The soldier in the shotgun seat grabbed a radio handset from over his head and pressed the talk button, shutting the background music out entirely as he began his first spiel of the night. It blared harshly over the same speakers the music emanated from, filling the air with a light, almost friendly Oklahoma accent.

"Welcome boys and girls to the Eighth Annual United States Battle Royale. In the front of the bus and on the seats in front of you we will be showing an informational video that will explain everything to those of you who still don't know what's going on. Please, one and all, direct your eyes to the nearest screen and enjoy the return of America's favorite big green rabbit, Benny the Bunny! Look closely and you may even recognize some of his friends! Enjoy!"

With that, the curtain drew across the soldiers once more. A digital projector mounted in the ceiling blasted a series of vertical colored test bars across the curtain, waiting as the small monitors located in the back of each bus seat rotated into the students view.

Then the video began.

* * *

**Transcript of Instructional Video "How To Properly Fight a Battle Royale: Winter 2007! ©®"**

* * *

(STATIC AND SNOW.)

(FBI WARNING.)

(Bouncy music plays as the video fades in on a cartoony forest background.)

ANNOUNCER (VO): Hey everyone, who's your favorite big green rabbit, back with us again after such a long absence?

CHILDREN (VO): Benny!

ANNOUNCER (VO): That's right, five time Emmy award winner Benny in association with The American Confederated Networks and the United States Justice Department: Entertainment Division is proud to bring you...

(The title flies onscreen in big, puffy letters. As it fades away, in bounds a familiar man in a large green rabbit suit with an unbelievably cartoony smile and big, silly eyes. Children cheer offscreen as he bounds into the center of the frame. He still speaks like Barney would if he were into acid. Whimsical bouncy music accompanies him whenever onscreen. He also carries a vaguely bloody pair of hedge clippers.)

BENNY: Hey kiddies!

CHILDREN (VO): Hey Benny!

BENNY: Well, I'm here to congratulate all of you watching this video from Amberlaine High School! You're the lucky class chosen for this year's Battle Royale! Isn't that super special?

CHILDREN (VO): Yay!

BENNY: Now Benny's been told that you kids have been real naughty, fighting against our great government for no good reason. That makes Benny sooooooooo, saaaaaaaaaaaaad!

(He mimes rubbing tears from his eyes.)

CHILDREN (VO): BOO!

BENNY: But, that's all right! This ultra-super-swell program has been designed to weed those meanies who want to fight from the system to those who are real true American patriots!

(A cartoony American flag flies up behind Benny.)

CHILDREN (VO): Yay!

BENNY: And to help me explain the rules of the game to you today, I've brought in some special guests you might recognize!

(He walks through his magical forest, allowing us to see Harlan Musgrove, Danny Arkham, Miranda Gardner and Yoshiko Kanbe all standing on cartoony rocks (obviously green-screened in). All of them clearly have been beaten up, have collars around their necks and have their hands tied and mouths covered with duct tape. Nooses hang tightly around their necks.)

BENNY: Now here's the rules for those of you who don't know them. Listen up so you'll learn to fight right and with great gusto, since that will make the viewers and our great leader very happy!

CHILDREN (VO): Yay!

(Yoshiko clearly is trying to fight his bonds.)

BENNY: For those of you who don't know how to play the game, here's the basic point! You've all been brought here and will soon each be given a weapon! With these weapons you must kill each other! The last one standing wins! It's just that simple!

CHILDREN (VO): Yay!

BENNY: Now, you've all been placed in the abandoned town of Grover's Mill, it's a pretty big area overall so you'll have lots of places to fight and hide!

CHILDREN (VO): Yay!

BENNY: Now it isn't all fun and games, since we're in the middle of winter, they say that the temperatures are going to be sooo cold.

CHILDREN (VO): Brrrrr!!

BENNY (nodding jauntily): That's right, so you better be sure to take care of yourselves so you won't catch cold and die a boring death!

CHILDREN (VO): BOO!

BENNY: Now, the town itself is surrounded by what we like to call the Briar Patch, a thick fence of razor wire that'll slice and dice you like it's nobody's business! That'll really hurt, so you better make sure you don't try and escape, otherwise you'll be leaving a big mess!

CHILDREN (VO): BOO!

BENNY: Now, about those collars you're wearing! Taking a cue from our happy neighbors to the east, we've done away with the old fashioned and clunky belts and given you these brand new shiny collars! Just so you know, they're 100 waterproof and shockproof and permanent! They monitor your vital signs, informing us of your location and movements. They even have a microphone so the people at home will hear what you're saying so they can get into the adventure! So if you wander into a danger zone, or cause trouble, we can identify you, and transmit radio waves that trigger an alarm and boom! It explodes! We can find you anywhere with the radio signals too, even if you try and dig a hole it will get to you and explode! If you try to rip it off, it explodes too, so promise not to try that, OK?

(Benny dances happily in front of the hostages. The boys are all fighting with their restraints, with Harlan in particular trying to rip out of his noose. Miranda cries practically in rivers.)

BENNY: Now about the danger zones! As long as you all play nice and hardy and without breaking the rules, the Danger Zones will not need to be used! If you break something though or try to be smart, we will turn them on just to keep going with the rules. However, if more than one of you makes it to Day Three, at nine pm all areas except the grid at the center of town will become Danger Zones, so no one can just hide out and hope to avoid the game! If you do, everyone will explode! As long as we're here, let's fight hard so that doesn't happen!

(He looks up into the camera cheerfully.)

BENNY: Oh, I forgot one important thing! There's a time limit on this game! Three days. If we haven't got a winner after three days, all the collars automatically explode! And no one wins.

CHILDREN (VO): BOO!

BENNY: I know, it would make me so sad too!

(He mimes wiping away tears again, then looks back up cheerful again. Danny has just about torn the tape off from around his wrists.)

BENNY: Now, how do we go about playing the game? Well, there's plenty of ways. First, you could be bad and try not to play the game...

(He kicks the cartoon rock out from under Danny's feet, clearly a green box as it flies. The determined school criminal tries to fight it, getting his hands near the noose as his body jerks spasmodically. However after about two minutes, his fighting slows, and in one minute more he ceases moving as his body twitches once, twice, and then no more.)

BENNY: But that would make me sooo saaaaaad!

CHILDREN (VO): BOO!

(The three still standing fight their bonds even more, screaming wildly as Benny continues.)

BENNY: But then you could try to play the game, and you could have real fun!

(He pulls out a baseball bat and cheerfully beats the three as they stand on their boxes. Harlan gets one to the chest, almost causing him to fall off his box. Miranda gets hit in the knee, causing her to scream behind her tape as she fights to stand. Benny saves one hit for Yoshiko's mouth, partially tearing the tape away as blood spurts out.)

YOSHIKO: I'm going to kick your fing ass bunny!

BENNY (oblivious): Now that's one sort of fun! Then there's all sorts of kills too! You could go simple...

(He pulls out a large pistol and shoots Harlan point blank in the chest. His bright red blood flies against the green screen behind him, distorting the cartoon forest slightly as his body flies up against the noose, rocking and reeling as his body twitches convulsively. Both Yoshiko and Miranda are now crying and screaming, though Yoshiko can be heard best.)

BENNY: Or you could get really creative!

(He walks up with his hedge clippers towards Miranda. She fights through tears as he opens the blades and wraps them around her foot. With a SHINK! and a spray of blood, he handily cuts off Miranda's right foot. She screams through her tape as she falls off the cartoony rock, severed foot spurting blood all over the place. Benny just leaves her there, staring almost methodically as she hangs and gushes blood.)

YOSHIKO: You fing son of a b! Miranda, it's going to be all right, it'll be over soon, just take it easy, it'll be over soon I swear! Fing bunny! You'll be all right Miranda, it'll be over quick!

(Benny the Bunny then methodically stabs the girl repeatedly in the chest and stomach, ripping her open and spilling her bowels all over the set as the girls eyes roll back into her head. He proudly displays her viscera to the camera like a mayor at a groundbreaking ceremony.)

BENNY: That'll get people to really love you!

CHILDREN (VO): Yay!

BENNY: And then there's those of you who will try to fight the game. I just want to show you what that looks like first.

(Raising what appears to be a garage door opener, he points it at Yoshiko's neck. He presses the big red button on it, and the red LED's on the front of Yoshiko's collar begin to light up with a loud beeping noise. Yoshiko thrashes about wildly. He falls off his perch, catching on the noose. He tries to scream, chokes, and then with a gout of blood his collar explodes, spraying Benny's face a shade of bright red.)

BENNY: Doesn't that look fun?

CHILDREN (VO): Yay!

(He pushes Yoshiko's corpse out of the way and wanders off to another portion of the cartoon forest.)

BENNY: Now, every six hours we will be announcing the names of your classmates who have died, just so you'll know how much longer you'll have and who you still need to kill!

CHILDREN (VO): Yay!

(Dancing more through the cartoon forest as whimsical music plays in the background, Benny comes upon a table with gear set out upon it.)

BENNY: Each of you will be leaving this bus one by one in a randomly assigned order, but first you get a brand new backpack!

(He motions to each of the items on the table as he points it out. Holding up the backpack, he shows his name stenciled on in big letters.)

BENNY: This one says Benny! I feel so special! Inside is enough food and water to last three days, a pouch with a map, compass, pen and contestant list, a flashlight, any personal effects you may have had and of course your randomly assigned weapon! Like many of the advantages and disadvantages we may have in life, these will all be done totally at random!

CHILDREN (VO): Yay!

BENNY: Each weapon is different too. Not just guns and knives, either. It's random, so maybe you'll get lucky, maybe not. To those of you who aren't lucky, you can always kill someone and take theirs, or you can try to find one of the many weapons hidden throughout town!

CHILDREN (VO): Yay!

(Benny holds up a large sledgehammer.)

BENNY: Mine is super lucky!

(He smashes a watermelon on a nearby cartoon stump to great applause.)

CHILDREN (VO): Yay!

(Benny drops the sledgehammer, and graphics of two blacked out outlines of people appear behind him with big white question marks on their chests.)

BENNY: Now, to make this even more super fun, we've got two special volunteer guest stars to play the game with you! They really want to do some killing and get bloody and we said it would be A-OK since they are really good at it! They'll make it real fun!

CHILDREN (VO): Yay!

(The graphics disappear from behind him.)

BENNY: OK, you'll all be leaving here in a few minutes by randomly assigned number alternating between boys and girls. When your name is called, you will have thirty seconds to make it of the back of the bus and into the game! Now be careful, the bus is moving, we don't want you to get hurt getting out. The last one standing gets to live, be really really famous and a hearty cash prize! But most importantly, just remember to be yourselves.

(Beat.)

BENNY (more cheerful): All right, now let's get this show on the road! I've had a great time here today with you kids, but I can't wait to watch you in the game! Have fun!

CHILDREN (VO): Yay!

(As Benny waves to the camera, it fades out.)


	6. Hour 0: 52 Contestants Remaining

**

* * *

Hour 0**

**52 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

With most of the fifty occupants of the moving bus left in shock attempting to comprehend everything they had just seen, Isaac Freemantle, a.k.a. Boy # 17, found himself already in motion. _We took a gamble, and now they got us by the balls. All right, now just gotta see what I've got and see how we can use that best. They took four of us, four good ones. Four of the best. They know the show. They let you live though to make a point, didn't they? If I'm lucky, Sophia's here too, and Rich... they're making a point by letting you all live. You know Christina's here, she's one. With luck you've got Sophia, Hugo, Jeffrey, Basim, they're all strong and good. Get everyone together, and get something started and we'll shove it right back in their faces now won't we?_

Knowing that the best (and only) move he could make at the moment was surveying his classmates (potential ally and enemy alike), the boy chanced another look around despite the difficulty in doing so given his bound position. The manacles were tight, but if you stretched your neck just right (and if you were tall enough), it was possible to take a look around. Isaac felt the slightest inclination towards laughter in seeing that he wasn't the only one making this attempt, but he couldn't dare laugh out loud. Nothing about the Battle Royale Program lent itself towards laughter.

Though he could only see the backs of the heads of the people in front of him, it was clear that some were weeping. Even though he was all the way in the front of the bus, it was not difficult to tell that Rich Miller, a.k.a. Boy # 1, in particular was more or less breaking down. His blubbering was loud and piercing, and Isaac found his emotions towards the boy confused. On the one hand, he rather did like Rich as a human being, but on the other, everything seemed to fit as Rich probably having sold them out. _If he is indeed a traitor (and he probably was, how else in the world would the cops have known what we were planning), that boy will get what is coming to him in his own time._

Looking across the aisle, he spied Conrad Ripley, a.k.a. Boy # 18 and Amanda Marquette, a.k.a. Girl # 18, as they sat bound in their seats. Conrad wasn't taking the situation too well, with tears rolling down his face and lip aquiver, while Amanda looked more shaken up than anything else. _For a girl as girly as she is, gotta say she's taking this one rather well. Maybe the shock hasn't kicked in yet. Talk to them? Nah, don't know them well enough._

Behind him the picture was mostly the same, people looking like they were in shock, while some others (mostly girls) were crying. Though he tried not to let it show on his face, Isaac was more than willing to admit to himself a certain level of fear. If he were less strong, the boy knew that he indeed would be among those with tears. But that wasn't befitting a great leader, and so he maintained a strong appearance. _This ain't going to be that easy, not like last time. You wanted to start something and now you gonna have to finish it. You can do it, but you're going to need everyone here, and that is going to be the hard part._

There were plenty of allies on the bus from what he could see, people he knew he could trust and would follow him unconditionally. However, as the odds tended to go, he knew that for every ally there would likely be a villain on the bus _(not counting those who volunteered for this eh?)_, and they would be the problem. Much as he didn't want to admit it, much as he wanted to believe in and trust his classmates, there were also some faces that were smiling.

Eager even.

Nick King, a.k.a. Boy # 9, was still rocking back and forth with glee up front. Though everyone knew him as a geek who really thought too much of himself, it would only take a single overheard conversation to know he was a Battle Royale junkie, being that it was pretty much all he talked about, and that of everyone here he appeared the most excited. Looking back again it was easy to see the happy, nearly gleeful face of Nick McIntyre _(what is it with these guys named Nick?)_, a.k.a. Boy # 24 as he smiled pleasantly in his seat and hummed cheerfully to himself. Iago Cilek, a.k.a. Boy # 21, shot Isaac a wink that nearly made him shudder.

It came as no surprise that there were people who would be willing to play and willing to fight in this game, and that Isaac could accept. It would be difficult, but he could. _Fundamentally our fight is a generational one, and our desire to remain young is what allows us to fight. Those who want to play... they want to grow up too damn fast. Where's that whole Toys 'R Us mentality?_ The problem with the players was that their lack of cooperation would make it that much more difficult to succeed in their fight against the system. He knew he could pull it off, he even knew that he could get a fair amount of people to join him. True, he didn't know everyone on the bus, since, let's face it, most of them he'd easily admit had been useless to him before, but the odds that at least a few people on the bus worshipped him were pretty decent he figured. That much would create a fighting chance. _Just don't want them fighting me, if they fight, it's their own damn fault and their own damn problem, if they stay out of the way of our revolution then we can all be happy._

"This will happen," he muttered under his breath, aware that it seemed to rattle his seatmate, Nicole Baldwin, a.k.a. Girl # 17. She looked his way with nervous doe eyes, and though he didn't care much for the girl (she was a bit full of herself and a bit of a bitch), the genuine fear on her face made him feel the slightest bit of compassion.

"It's going to be all right," he told the girl, "you'll see."

While he had hoped for a bit of gratitude from the blonde, he was not surprised when she showed no reaction. _It's going to be a long few days Isaac my man._

* * *

At exactly 12:01 am Eastern Standard Time, the soldier in the shotgun seat in the front partition of the bus reached idly over his head and pulled down his radio handset once more. He knew the spiel by heart (it was quite the honor to actually have a position that would allow him screen time in the broadcast of the game), but all the same he read from a clipboard to make sure he wouldn't foul up.

"Boys and girls of Amberlaine High School, as of this moment you are all officially contestants in the Eighth Annual United States Battle Royale. In a matter of moments we will be opening the doors at the rear of the bus and releasing you one at a time according to your randomly assigned number and alternating by gender. Your bag will be dropped from the roof off the back of the bus fifteen seconds after your name is called. If you are not off the bus within thirty seconds of your name being called, your collar will detonate. Once all fifty of you have been released, our two surprise guests will be released from random locations within the perimeter. As of now anything goes, so good night, and good fight."

The soldier smiled at his own wit. That last line was his. The rest had been written by a whole crew of government sanctioned (or forced, it was so hard to tell the difference anymore) writers, but that last bit had been his. _I'm gonna make me a star yet, he thought._ Though he never would be, in the moment the thought was quite comforting. Rifling through the list, the soldier continued his spiel.

"Now let's begin with Boy Number One, Rich Miller!"

_

* * *

I shouldn't be there, I was good, I helped them, and they put me here? Why? Am I being punished? I did the right thing, I'm a real patriot, I-_

"Boy Number One, Rich Miller, it has been ten seconds. Twenty more and your collar will detonate!"

Shaking himself back into reality, the boy could only vaguely sense that the manacles around his wrists had been released. He stood up, only vaguely sensing that he was moving. He felt sluggish, like he was in slow motion, but all the same he still moved. Walking the long distance from the front to the back of the bus, he could feel a cold blast of air as he neared the rear doors. He looked to all the faces of the people he passed, some of them looked back at him with mixtures of hope, fear, disgust or sheer, deadened neutrality. Isaac in particular kept his steely gaze away from the first boy out, causing Rich to feel mixed feelings of gratitude and despair.

Stepping up to the back of the bus, Rich shivered as he surveyed the scene. The bus was driving through snow, not that deep, rather slow though, barely five miles per hour. His bag was already a good distance behind the bus, a dark mass in a sea of white. The sky was dark, but the terrain was dimly lit, probably from floodlights set up by the game people or from the really well lit town.

Though much of Rich Miller was already beginning to fall apart inside, the basest survival instinct remained. No matter how many different things he found wrong with the situation, no matter how much his mind screamed to quit, his body still found that unerring will to survive. He was absolutely terrified, shaking so hard he could barely stand it seemed.

But he wanted to live.

Closing his eyes, the boy jumped from the back of the moving vehicle and into the game.

* * *

Nick King sat in his seat enthusiastically waiting for the moment of departure. More than anything, he wanted to get out and into the game. Although they'd quieted his outburst upon waking up, there was still little that would deter him from bouncing up and down like a puppy dog in his seat waiting for the game to begin. However, even more than he waited in his seat, he began to make observations about how things were run and how people were going out.

_Boys and girls of the same number in the same seat. Boys in the aisle so they can go first. Some people doing better than others._

Indeed, while some went out looking as terrified as Rich (notably Eugene Chidester, a.k.a. Boy # 3, who by the smell of it apparently released his bowels before departure), others were appearing more solid in their dispositions. Good looking and confident, Carlos Bautista, a.k.a. Boy # 6, left with half a smile on his face that made him look like he was just stepping out onto the soccer field again. Stacey Golden, a.k.a. Girl # 4, looked simply intense, as if she were going to kill the next person out of the bus, which got Nick to smile even more. _Competition. Awesome!_ (Though he didn't know it, Stacey's intensity derived more from her anger at being chosen for the game rather than a desire to play; as a judge of character Nick King didn't know he was abysmal.)

But as he sat, a plan began to trickle in. _You get one bag to start, one weapon, but you're not guaranteed anything good. Got to increase the odds somehow, but if you can't even do that, what can you do? Think of something now, and think of it fast._

And that something was Zora Caldwell, a.k.a. Girl # 9.

For some arbitrary reason she had been assigned to sit next to him, and as far as Nick was concerned, she was his meal ticket. _Just get her. Get her fast, you know how and you know where, just do it man, just do it and get it done. Come on, you can do it... you're not doing it. Just do it, it'll be easy. They'll be calling your names soon, do it quick..._

But as the boy looked at the girl sitting next to him, this girl who for all intents and purposes he did not know and should've been able to take care of easy, he found himself freezing up. _Come on, just do it, do it. You've got it in you, just do it man._

Much as the boy didn't want to admit it, his heart was pounding. He wanted to be good at the game, he always knew he would be. He'd seen it every time, watched it and loved every moment. _Remember in the Boston game when Charlie stabbed his girlfriend with that chunk of metal from his leg? Remember in West Virginia when Cletus ripped Wanda's jaw off and then gutted Caleb with it? Remember in the California game when Ashley bit off a chunk of Joel's face? Those were all awesome, you gotta have it in you to do this!_

He pumped himself up, breathing in and out quickly. Amos Epstein, a.k.a. Boy # 7, walked by towards the back of the bus. Nick could see his time was growing short. If he was going to do it, he had to do it quick...

...but it was Zora. Zora Caldwell. A pretty blonde cheerleader, even Nick who was firmly rooted in the school's nerd population knew of her at the very least. She was nice enough, choosing not to take part in the near-ritualistic cruelty that most of the school's more beautiful clique often took part in. You would always see her taking part in all the school activities, often wearing some of the more garish and humiliating of costumes on spirit days with the widest of smiles on her face. Nobody loved Amberlaine more than Zora.

And here Nick found himself trying to get the motivation to kill her. She was looking half-way between terrified and in shock, tears dripping down the corners of her eyes. They appeared as two floating blue pools over her quivering lips, looking as pitiful as you could imagine. She was pretty even if she was a mess.

"Next up, Boy Number Eight, Aziz Haddad!"

As Aziz ran back, Nick looked at Zora with a slightly wild look in his own eyes. _It's now or never buddy._

"I've got nothing against you," the boy said with a wavering voice, trying to smile and coming up with a mouth that appeared a wide toothy cave.

"What?" Zora asked with a frightened confusion.

"Just wanted you to know that," Nick said as he lunged across his seat toward her. Though his movement was limited by the manacles, he was able to quickly and effectively butt her in the face with his forehead, breaking her nose in a spray of blood. Passing by, Natalya Serov, a.k.a. Girl # 8 let out a scream and sprinted towards the back. CJ Dartanian, a.k.a. Boy # 10, looked across the aisle with grim confusion as Nick attacked the girl sitting next to him.

"What the fuck you doing man?" he yelled.

With Zora stunned, bloody and crying in her seat as her nose ran red, Nick lunged over again with his mouth wide open. Closing his teeth on the right side of her neck, the boy closed his jaws with all the force he could muster. Zora screamed a violent, confused scream as the boy attacked her. As he could feel her flesh beginning to tear, the boy sawed his teeth back and forth and wrenched his neck to the side, ripping out her right carotid artery with an immense spray of blood. She screamed violently as arterial blood sprayed every which way, coloring red their seats, the empty ones in front, the walls, the floor. Some screams could be heard in the rest of the bus, and even CJ was cursing at the top of his lungs as rapidly as he could (or as Nick would call it, a "Jock Scream").

"Next up, holy shit, that was quick, Boy Number Nine, Nick King!"

The blood drenched warrior stood up, spitting the chunk of Zora's neck from his mouth into CJ's lap. The girl wailed and cried in her seat as arterial blood pumped every which way. With his hands released, the blood-drenched Nick walked toward the back of the bus and an attempt at smugness on his face. People looked up toward him with a mixture of disgust and fear. _You killed her, you killed her, holy shit you killed her. You're a badass now. You're the first killer in the game, and you are a god. Nobody's going to look at you the same way again, because you are a fucking god._

Running down the aisle, Nick quickly jumped and landed about six inches short of escaping the bus. He stumbled, twirling through the air as he landed on his shoulder blades in the slurry of snow behind the bus. The boy rolled painfully and came to a stop in the middle of a snow bank along the road next to the bus. His body exploded in pain, but at least it was brief.

"Well that was smooth," the boy said with a groan.

He rolled, trying to get onto his feet. Though it hurt like hell, at least he didn't break anything. That much was good he wagered. The boy quickly surveyed the area. Everything was brightly lit by a series of flood lights situated on towers around the perimeter of the road _(they want to film it of course)_, and he could see the town about a half mile to his right. It'd be a long hike through pretty thick snow, but it wouldn't be impossible.

"Hey all you out there in TV land," the boy muttered with a cough into his microphone. Clearing the pain from his throat as he sucked in the icy air _(that smarts)_ he continued, "my name is Nick King, and I am going to be your winner of this Battle Royale."

Finding his pack in the wake of the bus, he quickly leaped upon it and pulled it open. _Food, food, water, water, map, great, where's the weapon, where's the, aha!_

The boy found that he had been graced with a gun. A snub-nosed revolver to be precise. It wasn't the most formidable of weapons, that much was for sure, but it would most certainly do under the circumstances. He checked the chamber. _Loaded._

"Now what I'm going to do here is called clearing the field," Nick added as he zipped the pack up and pulled it over his shoulders, "it's quite simple really. I'm going to follow the bus and shoot each and every person that I can as they come out. Then I am going to loot them savagely, and I am going to take this town by storm. By morning, the streets will be bathed with blood, and it will all be thanks to your and my best friend in the world, Nick King."

Feeling more confident now that he had finally killed someone, the boy smiled widely and flashed a thumbs up to the nearest camera he could see. It would be easy, all too easy...

* * *

Amanda Marquette, a.k.a. Girl # 18, was trying as best as she could to hold it together. It all felt like it was falling apart, but she had to keep together, she just knew it. So long as she held on, things couldn't be that bad. So long as she kept it going, it would be all right. But Zora... Zora. That sick little fucking nerd killed her. Bit a chunk out of her neck and quickly killed her. The little son of a bitch _murdered_ her.

Well, not quite at least. That was the worst part of it all. As things were, Amanda wasn't entirely in the game yet, and everything seemed to be moving through her head in what she could best approximate as slow motion. It hadn't consumed her, and she hadn't really absorbed what in all was going on. The last thing she remembered quite clearly was having lunch with Mary and Zora on the quad, talking about how Kendal Fuchs may or may not have finally talked her way into Carson Naylor's pants the other night (and how Amanda had lost five bucks on whether or not he was gay), and then everything all of a sudden got very noisy. People were fighting, there were cops everywhere _(was that what Basim was talking about?)_, they ducked into a classroom to hide, and then everything went black. Then she'd woken up in a world that seemed to have transformed itself into a brilliant white and red version of hell...

She tried to shake the image of Nick King walking down the aisle between the seats with blood all over his mouth and grinning like some monster. She tried to block out the image of Zora stumbling down the aisle, hands covering her neck as blood still sprayed brilliantly between her fingers and sprayed some of the seats she passed. Amanda tried to call out to her, tried to say something to her friend, but ultimately whatever words formed found themselves caught in her throat. _She's not dead yet, but she will be soon. That's not a way to go, that's a mess. What are you talking about, she's not supposed to be dead yet! None of us are supposed to be here, what the fuck is wrong with everybody?_

Shortly after CJ Dartanian, a.k.a. Boy # 10, left the bus they began to hear the shooting. It was just a quick series of pops followed by a few more resounding booms, but she was certain a gunfight was going on in their wake. _Holy shit this is really happening, this is really happening, holy shit this can't be good._

Still, people left the bus. Names were called, they filed out, and she watched as faces passed her, people she'd known for much of her life. Many of them had tear-streaked faces, many looked confused and hurt. _We're all going to die. They know it too, you just look at their faces and you can see it in them. You can see that everyone knows they're going to die, and this is all going to be... shit._

Then there was Basim. _They took him too..._

Basim Sharafi, a.k.a. Boy # 13, almost missed her as he passed. Looking down, the "Iraqi Orlando Bloom" as many girls called him, gave her the faintest of smiles. She tried her best to smile back and even under the circumstances found that she was blushing a little (and being as pale a redhead as she was she almost looked like a fire hydrant), and it made everything feel better in its own strange way. Not greatly, certainly not entirely, but some of the fear went away. She knew she shouldn't feel better, not considering what they were in, and certainly not considering the fact that he'd been ignoring her for the longest time, but she was. _Damn it girl this is not the time or the place to go into an old crush again, you had a lot of time to get better after him and been with more guys than even he could hope for-_

"Next up, Girl Number Eighteen, Amanda Marquette!"

Getting back into the swing of things, Amanda realized that she had let her mind wander again. Her seatmate _(Conrad Ripley, my didn't he look scared?)_ had already left, and so too were her hands free. It was all happening and it was happening way too damned fast.

The fear was going away, and the desire for survival had already kicked in. She stood and quickly turned to walk down the aisle. There weren't very many people around, and Zora's blood still stained the floor. She could feel her shoes slipping and sticking on it with a sickening squishing sound.

In seat # 44 sat the person Amanda would have considered her best friend. Sure, Kendal Fuchs, a.k.a. Girl # 22, wasn't the brightest bulb in the circuit. If anything, in more ways than one she was actually quite dumb. That didn't stop her from being a kick to hang around however, they were BFF's after all, and even though Amanda could drink Kendal under the table in no time flat, Kendal still had more notches in her bedpost, so as far as Amanda figured everything evened out.

Amanda looked to the stricken girl, watching as her eyes darted back and forth fearfully.

"I'll meet you outside," she said quickly, a remark to which Kendal could only nod.

"Watch that first step won't you?" Amanda said quickly with the slightest of forced smiles. Kendal didn't return it. Then again, it wasn't all that difficult to understand how someone would find smiling a difficult proposition under the circumstances.

Like that, she walked to the back of the bus.

* * *

Many words went through Rene Foucalt, a.k.a. Girl # 25's, mind as she watched her classmates cross down the aisle and enter the game ahead of her. Some were choice, some were fearful, and some were French. Perhaps the most choice of the bunch were the French ones.

"_Putain!" _the girl yelled angrily as she struggled in her bindings. It would do no good, that much she knew, but all the same it made her feel a bit better in the moment. It felt like she could do something about it if she could curse and fight it at the very least. _At least you're angry, that's a lot more constructive than fear. The French only slips out when you're angry, not scared, so that's comforting. Oh if mom could see you now she'd be attacking the TV. She taught you all the best stuff 'cause she couldn't ditch the old life; think you could ditch your old life enough to actually win this thing?_

All things considered, the girl doubted her chances for survival immensely. By the looks of things and the order that people had gone out thus far, the girl knew she was last, and odds were that being the last person out made the odds of her death being sooner rather than later were greater than ever.

Statistically speaking, this line of thinking wasn't that far off. Oftentimes being released late was a veritable death sentence, as in the Maine game where eventual winner Alonso Cain picked off the last seven players released with a combination of a crossbow and a trowel. This had proven such a popular strategy in games since that this games mobile exiting platform was sought as a means of remedying that, making it difficult for players to continue in kind (though Nick King of course would disagree that this technique dissuaded players from repeating it). Still, the last to go weren't always handed a death sentence. Plenty of the swifter ones throughout the games history had made it by while dodging bullets, while two winners (Charles Lee Voorhees of Massachusetts and Cora Bright Tree of South Dakota) were the last contestants of their gender released into their respective games.

Still, not knowing any of this information, Rene felt nothing but anger. A pretty, albeit short girl with curly blonde hair that fell about her face, her normally pouty looking lips were contorted into a grimace of rage. It was her way of coping, the best she could manage while so many more were on the verge of nervous breakdown and psychotic collapse. All things considered, it did little to make her feel any better about the situation, but it helped keep her more cognizant than most everyone around her. _You're a fucking cheerleader, not some fighter right? At least that's what they think. Cast some little French-Canadian firecracker and they're going to get this all shoved up their ass!_

"_Putain de merde, _let me the fuck out of here!" she shouted angrily as she fought her restraints once again.

"That's not going to do you any good you know, at least no more than it did before," the calm voice to her side said once again. If she had the opportunity she probably would have punched the boy, but by the time she would be free, that boy would be long gone.

"I never asked you," the girl spat back.

"I know, but it doesn't really make a difference under the circumstances, you know?" Chad Doerner, a.k.a. Boy # 25, replied. She looked into his calm, borderline soothing brown eyes and immediately found herself shutting up. Arguing with him would be no good, she knew it. Maybe she always did. He just wasn't the arguing type. If you were to look up mellow in the dictionary, Chad's face would probably be next to it. Just... little seemed to phase him.

Though she was in the school's more popular half and Chad most decidedly was not, she still knew him. Everybody did it seemed. Chad filled that role of generic nice guy who seemed to be known by everybody without ever still doing anything to deserve it one way or the other. He wasn't good looking, but he certainly didn't look bad. Lacking any better words, as far as Rene could describe him, Chad just _was._

And for some reason even she couldn't describe, that just pissed her off even more. _What's he telling me to do, why's he saying anything about it? Who does he think he is to be telling me-_

"I am quite certain that we are all going to die," Chad said in his still quite calm voice, "it is a bit of a foregone conclusion, isn't it?"

He craned his neck slightly, watching as Nick McIntyre, a.k.a. Boy # 24, ran into the game. It would be his time soon, and Chad was doing everything he could to maintain composure. Even Rene could see that, and she sympathized a bit. _We're all afraid, and we're coping with it however we know best. You're pissed, he's not. That's how things must be, eh?_

"I'd say yeah, it is," Rene replied as she calmed down, watching as Christina Montressor, a.k.a. Girl # 24, left.

"I just hope that when I go, it's quick," he said quickly and simply, "I don't want this to be bad. I hold no illusions that it won't be, this is going to be quite bad I think, but I can still hold out some hope for humanity I guess."

"Good luck to you on that one," she responded sarcastically. _Well, most of that's sarcasm at least; you're being nice to him, why?_

"Next up, Boy Number Twenty-Five, Chad Doerner!"

As the boys hands became unshackled, he rubbed his wrists idly. Standing up, he looked to the girl and forced something that might have once resembled a smile.

"Good luck, gods be with you," he said as he walked toward the back exit of the bus. Rene couldn't watch him step out due to the orientation of the bus, but she imagined that he didn't linger long. _You can feel the cold already, just two steps and you're out, right? Sounds like two steps. Christ, you're it now, this is bad isn't it? Probably is. All right, you can do this. It's bad, but you can do this. Right?_

"And last, but certainly not least, Girl Number Twenty-Five, Rene Foucalt!"

With her hands now free and her fate as the last contestant released from the bus uncertain, only two words could escape her mouth.

"Well _merde._"

* * *

On opposite sides of the town, two helicopters landed. They contained the last two contestants; two monsters of incomparable killing ability. Both numbered 26, and as codenames both were given the monikers of great monsters: Grendel for the boy and Scylla for the girl.

They came to spill blood, and oh how they did...


	7. Hour 1: 51 Contestants Remaining

* * *

**Hour 1**

**51 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

Morley. Laramie. Red Apple. Wild Seven. Pall Mall. The liquor store had a pretty good cigarette selection as far as the girl was concerned. Not the greatest in the world, certainly nothing like her favorite shop back in Amberlaine, but it would work for the time being. _Wild Seven's smooth, but Red Apple's got the flavor. Hell, Morley's just got the all around good package now, doesn't it?_ _Wait, why even bother choosing?_

Using the butt of her scimitar, the girl smashed open the liquor stores glass display case, smiling what was for all intents and purposes a rather ugly smile as she piled a wide selection of cigarette packs into her bag. Then again, it would be hard to see her smile a decent smile any time.

Sophia Apollinar, a.k.a. Girl # 6, was many things. Pretty just wasn't one of them. For a girl her features were harsh, her jaw almost square, her cheek bones rounded, eyes seemingly one size too large for her face. At just a shade over six feet tall she was tall for a girl (though there were just enough curves that you could still tell she was one), while her hair more often than not was a tangled mess of brown and blonde curls.

It was her smile though that she was most known for. Being born into a fair amount of poverty was bad enough as it was, but being born with a cleft palate had been horrible for the young girl growing up. They had not been able to afford the surgery to begin fixing the deformity until she was in the second grade, and by then much of the damage was harder to repair. Still, most of the surgeries had been successful, her hearing was mostly perfect and the scar on her lip finally looked more like a scar than a gash. The orthodontics though, they were still a work in progress. Most of her teeth were fine, but the ones in the front were enough of a mess that she could scare small children whenever she felt like it.

"Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke, right?" Sophia laughed idly as she zipped up her bag and continued to browse the store. Though she had the distinct feeling that this town had been abandoned for some time, she had to admire how much they had restocked the supplies in the stores. Their cigarettes were fresh, the alcohol selection abundant. _A little smoke, a hit of vodka, that'd clear things up a little bit now wouldn't it?_

"Nah, stuff's bad enough for you on a good day, and this ain't one of 'em."

It had been hard growing up. She never made any bones about it. It was hard looking at all the normal kids growing up all around her, kids who could laugh, play and eat without a care or a complication in the world. Some of them would make fun of her (though not nearly as many as she would usually tell people; come on, it made a better story), and that always sucked.

Then came the theatre.

On the advice of a counselor, she had taken up acting as a means for breaking out of her shell. Sophia didn't really give the idea a lot of credence at first, but given that she didn't really have anything better to do she gave it a shot. She was as surprised as anyone that she not only prospered, but actually wound up loving the theatre. Acting allowed the illusion of a face that wasn't her own, being able to play someone else and go beyond whatever limitations the body may have had. She wasn't the greatest in the school (that would probably be Frank, she would think with a grumble), but it turned her from an introvert to an extrovert and made one of the most invisible girls in school to one of the most popular. _Not like that'll help you now, will it? That's probably what got you into this mess in the first place really..._

Of course if you were popular in Amberlaine High School, you probably had connections to Isaac Freemantle. He could have been friends with anyone due to his charismatic nature and general good humor, but he had decided early on it seemed to align himself with as many popular and influential students and possible. _He probably used you for this, didn't he? He used all of us in his own way. He probably had some inkling that this would happen, set us up, brought us together to start this riot. Did he know that we'd get into a Battle Royale? Perhaps._

"Nah, no way, he's not that big an ass," Sophia muttered to herself.

The girl moved idly into the hard liquor section of the store, letting her fingers drift over the labels of vodkas and rums, brandy's and bourbons. _Maybe I could do with one bottle, warm things up a bit, right?_

Isaac was many things. Idealistic, charismatic, pushy even. A calm-looking and tall boy of African-American descent with wire-rimmed glasses, he radiated a sense of authority and knowledge. To anyone who asked, Sophia would have said he was almost a perfect cross between Winston Churchill and Malcolm X.

He had many plans, but he wouldn't have wanted any of the students to get anywhere near a Battle Royale. He _would_ have put them in danger if it proved a point, but never a Battle Royale. Not on purpose at least. _He's the kind of guy who's always trying to take down systems like this, not play into them, right? This time though... I think he got a little in over his head. Danny, Miranda, Harlan, Yoshiko, they were a message. They got the rest of us in here. Isaac, this time I may have to hit you. You owe me that much at least you son of a bitch._

Still, with Isaac in the game there was some hope. He always had something going on, a plan, a notion. If anyone was planning on an escape, it would have been Isaac. He had connections with people who knew things, hell, even he knew things, it was just a matter of waiting fo-

The small bell above the liquor stores door rang. Sophia shot an eye to the door. No one there. _Just the wind, right? You should get moving soon though, other people are going to want to get to a liquor store. What the fuck, it's cold, right?_

Of course it was cold. It was winter in Michigan. The wind was fierce, the snow a particularly wet, sloggy kind that made the walk into town a living hell. The clothing the Battle Royale people had provided did keep things reasonably warm, but it wasn't snowing in earnest yet either. The girl reckoned that if a real snowstorm were to come in, more than a few contestants would have been frozen out easily. _I swear, if I get out of this thing I'm moving down to Mexico, this is just bull-_

The attack came fast and from behind. Having taken one step backward to get a better view at their vodka selection, the girl saved her own life as the knife that was aimed downward at her neck instead just sliced through her parka. Acting on instinct, Sophia grabbed the nearest and largest bottle of alcohol she could find and whirled her body around, smashing it over the head of her attacker as they howled in pain and collapsed to the floor.

Wasting no time, she whipped her scimitar around and pointed the tip of the blade squarely into the throat of Nick King, a.k.a. Boy # 9, as he tried to fumble a small pistol from the front of his pants.

"Don't," Sophia said angrily as she pressed the blade closer to his throat. Though looking angry and somewhat confused, he gave in to her command. The knife he had tried to stab her with had fallen to the floor, but in looking at the gun he had in his belt Sophia could only feel angrier.

"What the fuck, you have a gun and you try to stab me? How fucking stupid are you?"

As if to make her point, she kicked him squarely in the crotch. The boy yelled pitifully. Drilling the point home, she kicked him again. And again. Kneeling down beside the boy as he cradled his bruised testes, the girl quickly pulled the gun from his belt, sticking both it and the knife he dropped into her own. _These could come in handy._

"You stabbed my fucking parka!"

_Still gotta thank you though, if you used the gun I'd probably be dead by now._

The boy looked scared, but Sophia had to do her best to not be rattled by him as well. He had surprised her, she wanted to kick herself. _You made it too easy, you should be dead you know, that was just fucking stupid. You gotta be smarter about this girl, you gotta be smart and you gotta be ruthless if you're going to survive this thing._

Still, the fact that the front of this boys jacket was bathed in blood seemed to scare the girl even more. Seeing it radiate from his mouth, the way it coated his jacket made him look like a zombie having made its first kill. _Oh shit, somebody's already dead. Wait, a lot of people are already dead from the video. But someone on the bus. Holy shit, who did this little freak get?_

"Whose blood is that?" she asked with a threatening point of her new gun.

"Fuck you!" the boy spat out. It was clear that this wasn't how he expected the attack to go.

"Tell me or I shoot your fucking balls off," she said simply as she sheathed the scimitar and withdrew the pistol.

"IT WAS ZORA, ZORA, ZORA!!" he shouted rapidly. If it weren't for the life or death situation they were in, she would have likely laughed at how he responded. Instead her thoughts turned to Zora. _Damn, she was a good one. And cute._

"Did you kill her?"

"Probably, she was bleeding really bad," Nick whimpered pitifully.

She looked down at the blubbering mess of a boy. Covered in blood, shaking slightly out of fear and pain. It was clear that he intended to kill her just as he likely killed Zora, but he had failed. He would do the same again. _Kill him, kill him fast, just do it now, it'll be easy..._

...and yet she didn't. He was unarmed, he was no threat really. Nick King was not one of the most physical people at school, and she had robbed him of his pistol and knife. Killing him would be easy, but that wouldn't really send him a message, would it?

Instead, the girl found what seemed to be an even better idea.

"You disgust me," she said simply as she trained the pistol on the boy and grabbed a bottle of vodka with her free hand, "get up!"

The boy stood up on shaky feet, cradling his damaged testes gently and pleading miserably.

"Look, please don't kill me, I can go out, I can go away from you, I won't hurt anyone, I swear!"

Sophia looked at Nick for a moment as he blubbered pitifully. Then she smashed the bottle of vodka directly into the boys face. Sophia marveled at how easily the nose broke, and even she had to admit that the amount of blood that came out was rather surprising. Nick howled miserably as he cradled his shattered face and tried to stumble toward the door.

Sophia followed him calmly, ripping the backpack from his shoulders as he continued to stumble. Dropping the bag to the ground for future plunder, she then reached into her pocket. It was a motion she'd performed so many times it was practically instinctual. Flick and roll, flick and roll... She flicked the top of the Zippo open, rolled the wheel and could only smile at the flame it produced.

* * *

Though scared out of his mind, the last thing Darwin Wong, a.k.a. Boy # 20, had expected to see as he walked through town cradling a hunting rifle was a screaming boy running by on fire.

"Dude," he managed to say.

The flaming boy ran from a liquor store by the look of it, and Darwin just watched transfixed as he tried to bat out the flames, running down some back alley across the street.

"Well there's something you don't see every day," he said aloud with the faintest trace of amusement.

"What, a boy on fire?" a voice from the liquor store asked. Darwin whirled in the stores direction, swinging the hunting rifle up defensively. Sophia held her pistol trained on Darwin, yet all the same both held their guns rather halfheartedly. Each knew that neither was a threat to the other.

"Something like that, yeah. Did you do it?" Darwin asked as he lowered the rifle.

"Yeah, but he was an asshole," Sophia responded bluntly.

"Ah, right," he responded with great hesitation. Sophia was cool, he knew that much, but considering the fact that she just lit someone on fire he still had some apprehension.

"I'm going to try to find Isaac," Sophia said, "I think he's got a plan to get out, he's always got something like that going on, you know?"

"Yeah, I do," Darwin replied, "He's always gotta be the ghost in the machine, doesn't he?"

"That's about right," the girl responded with a crooked grin.

"They got Vat 69 in there?" Darwin asked curiously.

"I don't know, maybe, but they do have Maker's Mark," Sophia replied.

"That's good shit. OK, I'm in."

* * *

He watched the town like a vulture, seeing the shadows dance along walls down the main street under the harsh glare of the floodlights that seemed to cover the entire town. There were some pops that he was almost certain were gunfire, but for the most part silence. People were still running like chickens with their heads cut off, wondering what they were doing and if this was all real. He knew all too well that it was real, and that from the beginning he had the power...

Those first few moments were the worst, that he would not deny. Waking up on the bus, grogged out to hell, finding out they were all in the game... It wasn't just any game either, it was _the _game. The big one. The one they'd probably be playing in a bigass coliseum if they were all back in the Roman days. Then seeing that freak rip the shit out of Zora. That was bad.

For all intents and purposes, CJ Dartanian, a.k.a. Boy # 10, knew that he was lucky to be alive. Not that luck was all he had to rely on at least... _Skill, it's all about skill. And you've got skill now, don't you?_

He laid low on a hill watching over the town, holding his gun and considering his fate. The earliest moments were bad, but they had solidified his standing as a man. That was the important part. They all knew that he was dangerous, and that was good. _If you cannot instill respect, instill fear. It worked before, it will work again. You can do it, you almost did it already._

That freak Nick thought he could be the badass. He was behind the bus, trying to fight it out, kill people as they left. CJ was better though, faster too. While Nick was still trying to pull Zora's body off of her bag (it looked to CJ like she died trying to get to it), he opened his bag and got some shots off. Nick fired back, pulling Zora's bag with him for plunder. They exchanged shots, and though neither was hit, it was Nick who ran off first. _He was the coward, I'm the badass, he knows that, they all will know that. I'm the motherfucking king of this thing, not him. In the end, I will be on top. That's just how it's got to be. I'll be the one giving the beatings this time..._

If there was one thing he knew about, it was beatings. One a day, almost every day, whenever he was bad (and he was bad a lot), sometimes when he wasn't. It was bad. It always was. _But now you're the strong one. You're the dominant one. You're the one who's going to be delivering the beatings. You'll be the strong one, not him. You showed that freak, and now you can show them all. What if he's watching? Fuck him, when you win this thing you'll have enough cash to have him taken care of. Then the pain will stop. Until then, you dispense it._

The semi-automatic pistol felt comforting in his hand. It was big, but in CJ's hands it looked small. With a large, muscular frame that carried an incongruously small and mean looking head, CJ was a physical force to be reckoned with. He knew it, and thoroughly intended to take care of it. In a hand to hand situation, it would have been all to easy for him to beat anyone to death with his bare hands (_hell, almost did that to Glen, didn't ya?_), but he knew enough to try and avoid that situation. Hand to hand was good, but with other contestants having pea-shooters of their own out there, he knew that distance was the key. _Shoot first, ask questions later, that is the key. No mercy, no prisoners._

"I can live with that," CJ said to himself.

If he had to hunt, he would hunt. He was ready and more than willing to kill. He would make them bleed. He would settle for nothing less than victory. _And then you will be the man of all men._

Double checking the clip in his gun (_still full_), CJ set off down the hill in search of a kill. Considering the number of people within this particular Battle Royale, he did not believe that would be at all hard to find.

* * *

"We're in this game less than an hour and already we're lost," Amber Miike, a.k.a. Girl # 5 grumbled angrily. Strikingly pretty and very intelligent, Amber was prone to letting her anger get the better of her rather often. It was something her twin brother Jordan Miike, a.k.a. Boy # 16, had learned to get used to a long time before. While she was short, pretty and smart, he was tall, strong and bordering on stupid. He did know that he was probably as pretty as she was (at least as far as tall male Japanese-American basketball players went), but in a game like Battle Royale, that meant very little.

"I told you I couldn't read the frickin map," he said angrily as he tossed the assigned guide around on its string around his neck.

"Yeah, but you're male, you're supposed to be good at this directional shit," she shot back.

"Well I'm not, all right?" Jordan responded.

"No, it isn't, unless we find a good place to hide we're up shit creek," Amber continued.

"Without a paddle even," he replied.

"Yeah, sure," she sighed.

It was bad, real bad. Then again, it was bad for everyone, wasn't it? _Stop being so damned selfish, we're all in this together. And you're here with Jordan too, how fucked up is that?_

It was hard being with Jordan. Under normal circumstances she could hardly stand being around him. He wasn't particularly bright and fancied himself something of a ladies man (and then there was that period in '05 when he spoke like a gangsta rapper for a month that she'd rather have forgotten), but he was blood. That was the hardest part. No matter how many issues she could have had with him, he was still blood. Hell, he was about as close as blood could get, born only twelve minutes after her. That had to make her the older one, the responsible one, the mature one. _Why do I always have to be in charge? Ah, right, that whole control freak thing, right._

Though if there was a time to want someone else in control, this was it. Amber knew fully well that she was no killer. Hell, she wasn't even close to being a fighter. She'd tried to stay as far away as humanly possible from that whole school revolution that Isaac was pulling off. There was no way it could end in anything but trouble... _and now we're here._

Besides, there was always the issue of Isaac. Though Amber had to admit that he was a pretty smart guy, she had never once fallen for his charisma. She could admit that he was a leader, but at the same time would never have followed him. The thought of having her fate in someone else's hands just had that unappealing air about it. But now... having someone else in charge didn't sound wholly bad. Someone who knew what they were doing at the very least, that couldn't hurt, right? Get someone who's trained how to fight, somebody who wants to fight, and just be a cog in the machine. Let them fight. Let them-

"We should get moving I think," Jordan said, "there's a lot of people out here. We should at least get out of sight, right?"

"Naw, ya think?" Amber shot back, though even she had to admit it was a good idea. Her brother may have been pretty thick, but he did know how to be practical.

That was the part that sucked the most, at least as far as she was concerned. Amber had always been the analytical type, great at her studies and focused on the goal of getting into a good college. She was strikingly beautiful, but chose not to date because it was impractical and would be a means of taking her eyes off the prize. She had friends, sure, but never wanted to dedicate time to a romance. She had to know what her goals were, and she had to aim straight for them. _You don't get straight A's and scholarships up the wazoo without some sacrifice._

But then there was Jordan. When they were little, she was the one who had to take care of him. He was always getting in trouble doing something stupid, stepping out of line, getting in fights he couldn't finish, and she had always been the one to pull him out of trouble.

Everything changed come puberty though, she would even call it a complete 180. While he still wasn't the brightest in the world, he did seem to transform from a gawky, short, pimply kid into a 6'3" ladies man overnight. He gained the respect of the boys when his natural affinity for basketball translated into a place on the team. He gained the admiration of pretty much all the girls once he got contacts, grew his hair out and started using even more skin products than they did. Jordan may not have been particularly smart, but his looks and charisma had worked well enough.

And that pissed Amber off to no end sometimes.

He stumbled into success, while she had to fight for it for her entire life. He coasted by on decent grades and success on the court while she did everything humanly possible to stay at the top of all the advanced placement classes. Everything was so easy for him...

...and that would probably save them in the game. If there was anything she would have placed money on in the game, it was that his affable nature would somehow keep them alive. He was the survivor type, he just had that knack for working things out as they came and not worrying about it too much. It pissed her off, yet at the same time gave her some level of comfort. He just knew how to stay around no matter what, to live _no matter what._

Would that mean he would kill her? Amber had considered that since the opening minutes of the game. That was the fucked up nature of the game, friends forced to kill friends, but to put twins in? That was beyond messed up (though it did seem to be a recurring trend that a pair of twins was always put in the game), but there was nothing that could be done. They were in, and they would have to survive. Amber was fairly certain that he would not kill her, he wasn't that big a fool and would probably keep her around as an ally. _Besides, who would kill their own sister? That would be really messed up, wouldn't it?_

"All right, say we get out of sight," Amber said as she finally decided that it was healthier to work together than mope, "where do we go?"

"Well, inside would be good," Jordan said, "if they've got the heat on, at least we'd be warm, able to figure things out, ya know?"

"Warm I can do with," Amber said with a forced smile, "how about in there?"

She pointed to a diner that Jordan immediately shook his head at.

"Too much glass, people could see us if we go in there. Besides, if they got food in there, stuff better than we got in the bags, people are going to want to get some of that, ya know?"

"Fair enough," she responded, "any place you'd suggest?"

Looking at his map, the boy scanned the streets looking for anything interesting. Amber could see the little hamster wheel in his head going a mile a minute, and try as she might not to she cracked a smile.

"If I got this read right..."

"You got us lost like five minutes ago dumbass," Amber said jokingly.

He ignored her, "If I got this read right, about two blocks that way there's a church. Let's take a look there."

"Why a church?"

"They tend to be pretty solid, and I get the impression more people want to be dealing death than dealing with God, it might give us a chance to catch our breaths, ya know?"

It didn't sound like a bad idea. Then again, anything better than wandering the streets sounded like a good idea. She spied someone running across the street in the distance. The person paused, perhaps looking at them, before dodging back down the street in the opposite direction.

"Sounds good to me."

* * *

The Grover's Mill Community Church was a creepy looking place, there was no denying that. The stained glass windows were so poorly designed that the distorted visages of saints (_they are saints, right?_) looked to Amber almost like monsters. It was surrounded by a heavy rod-iron fence, a lazy gate swinging open and shut slowly in the breeze with a loud creeking sound. The doors were heavy and wooden, looking more like the portal to an ancient castle than a modern church with their heavy iron knockers. It looked like a bad place to the girl, but then again in the context of a Battle Royale, wouldn't anything? They stood before the doors, Jordan holding his ax and Amber her machete in defensive positions.

"We go in fast, we go in hard, if anyone charges, you swing like mad, if anyone starts shooting, you book it back where you came from, I'll follow you, aright?" Jordan said quickly.

"Gotcha," Amber replied. Standing outside the doors was scarier than she could have ever imagined, but the prospect of both heat and safety was too good. They had to do it, they just had-

Jordan swung the door open with lightning speed. Amber ran in quickly first, followed in short time by her brother. They were fast, they were efficient, and they were quickly blinded by a trio of flashlights pointed directly at their faces. Amber screamed, she couldn't help it. Her machete clanked harmlessly to the ground, while Jordan whirled around to exit and slammed into the church's other door.

"Put your weapons down and no one will be hurt," an authoritative and familiar voice said loudly.

Finally getting his bearings, Jordan tried to look at the holders of the flashlights and only held his ax tighter.

"I got a machine gun pointed at ya, I wouldn't try to fight if I was you," a gruff boys voice said from behind the light.

"Who's there?" Amber asked.

"Oh, where are our manners," the authoritative voice said, turning off his flashlight as his two compatriots did the same. It took a moment for the twins' eyes to adjust to the light, but soon enough they could see the score. Christina Montressor, a.k.a. Girl # 24, stood smiling between two boys with a flashlight held delicately in one of her strong hands. To her left stood Hugo Diaz, a.k.a. Boy # 4. A tough and squat thug, he held what Amber recognized from old gangster movies as a Tommy Gun, though rather awkwardly and unprofessionally (_hey, we're all kids, can't expect everyone to get it right can ya?_) as he tried to look as scary as he could be. To Christina's right stood he of the authoritative voice, he who currently smiled like a proud father beneath his still shiny albeit slightly bent wire-rimmed glasses.

Isaac Freemantle, a.k.a. Boy # 17, said in that same smooth voice, "Don't worry, we're the good guys."


	8. Hour 1, Part 2: 51 Contestants Remaining

* * *

**Hour 1, Part 2  
**

**51 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

There were footsteps echoing down the main hall of Grover's Mill High School, and they more than anything else scared Nicole Baldwin, a.k.a. Girl # 17. She had been careful, hadn't she? The place looked good at first; it wasn't as well lit as some, it was pretty solid looking, and, hell, it was a school, who would want to go there? But someone had. That had to be expected, didn't it? There were hunters out there, hell, there were _monsters_ out there if that video was to be believed. She should've seen all this coming, but she didn't.

Then again, a firm grasp on higher reasoning had never been one of Nicole's strongest suits. Much as she might have tried not to (and frankly she didn't try that hard), the girl embodied most of the worst stereotypes about teenage blondes. She was vain, she wasn't particularly bright, and had an inordinate focus on her popularity. On the plus side, she was very attractive with long blonde hair and a body that would have made most guys heads turn even in the heavy parka she wore in the Battle Royale. Still, in the grander scheme of things, well, she was rather unaware of the grander scheme of things.

In school she cared about little more than her clique, though even she had to admit to a certain feeling of betrayal in game that none of her friends had shown up. Where was Madison? Where was Natalya? Where was Kimberly? _I don't think she's in the game._ Zora? _Oh, right, she's dead._ They were the most beautiful girls in the school, the keepers of what was right and what was wrong (_what, someone has to make sure people are in their correct place_), and they had their pick of the litter when it came to the boys. True, there were other girls out there who could compete, but they were among the cream of the crop.

But in terms of the Battle Royale, that meant jack shit. _They left you. They could have stuck around, could have helped you, but they ran off and left you to die like this, everyone just ran off their own way, it's Madison's fault isn't it? She probably told everyone to go off and do their own thing, that's how she works, that's how she always goes, she would let any of us go before her, right?_

That had always been the problem with Madison Holland, a.k.a. Girl # 14. She was a nice enough person if you were pretty, even nicer if you were one of those she dubbed good enough to be on her side (a role that Nicole counted herself as one of the lucky few to have), and the worst person in the world if you were anyone else. She seemed to treat high school like it was an active war, and in terms of any battle she wanted to be the general. No one was better with a cruel putdown, and no one was more willing to do what it took to utterly destroy a person. Madison had once boasted that not a week went by while she was in high school that she hadn't made someone cry, and Nicole was not one to doubt her.

Nicole considered Madison to be her friend. Really, there was no reason to _not_ believe that they were the friends to the end as Madison had constantly mentioned. _So why do you think that it's her down that hall? Why do you think she's the one walking so slowly down the corridor with the footsteps echoing off the lockers like they do? It is her you know, and she may be your friend outside, but inside, she'll have no mercy, and you know it._

The girl did her best to hide in the shadow behind a set of lockers, but realized quickly that they would offer her no cover whatsoever. _If you want to hide, you gotta run girl._ With the ice ax she had been assigned cradled in her now gloveless hands (_Christ I need a manicure)_, the girl chanced a peek down the hall. Silhouetted by the light coming from outside was a figure at the end of the hall. Nicole couldn't see who, but they were a good distance away. _If you run, you can lose them unless they have a gun. But what if they have a gun? You have to chance it, it's not like they'll not see you if you pass by anyway..._

Gathering up all the courage that she could, Nicole jumped away from the wall and sprinted (well, the best approximation she could in the heavy clothing they had) in the opposite direction from the figure walking up the hall. Nicole was heartened by the fact that whoever it was took no shots at her, yet at the same time was terrified to hear that their footsteps increased as hers did. _They're following you, oh shit, just be quick, try and lose them, try and hide, this school looks big, you can do it girl, right?_

She tried to think fast (a stretch even she would admit) and found two options appealing. There was an office to the right that would likely have a window she could get through, or a passage that looked like it led to a hall on the left. _Hall could lead anywhere, but the office you could be backed in against a wall if there's no window. But there's windows all over?_ With feet pounding beneath her, the squeaking of her rubber soles against the linoleum as she ran, the girl made a choice.

Nicole darted left, heading down a short corridor that led directly to a large staircase that only led up.

"Shit!" the girl exclaimed as she chanced a look back. The figure approached more rapidly. Footsteps thudded heavily down the hall. Nicole could see hair bobbing up and down, whoever it was was probably a girl. _You can take a girl, right? But what if she's got a gun? What if it's Madison?_

Having already committed her momentum, the girl made to sprint up the stairs. The first three steps were a resounding success, while on the fourth she slipped and promptly fell face-first onto the stairs. Her ice ax flew end over end, landing halfway up the flight of stairs. Pain erupted in her face as it collided with one concrete step, sending a tooth flying as blood filled her mouth. She cried out in pain, rolling across aching ribs as she tried to regain her breath. _Holy shit that was stupid, that was stupid, that was stupid, holy shit._

She rolled over onto her back, trying to get up and finding that her left knee seemed to have disappeared into a thick world of pain. _Crap, crap, crap, this is bad, this is bad, this is b-_

The girl chasing Nicole rounded the bend to the stairwell and stood for her to see. As her eyes adjusted to see, Nicole oddly enough found herself unsurprised as to who her pursuer was.

* * *

Just off the quad in Amberlaine High School lay a concrete amphitheatre carved into the base of a hill. It was used for assemblies, pep rallies and plays when the weather was nice enough (which admittedly wasn't often), and when not in use usually acted as the lunch area for people from the school's more popular cliques. Nicole, Madison, Kimberly, Natalya and Zora maintained their territory toward the middle of the seats, using it to look down both on those lower than them and the jocks who sat below. On this day they were even more made up and expensively dressed than usual as they were supposed to have their senior portraits taken that day. Still, the conversation remained more or less the same.

"Any of you guys see Kelsey Starr perform on America's Next One Hit Wonder last night?" Nicole asked idly.

"That bitch? She's just promoting her album and trying to look like she didn't just come out of rehab," Kimberly responded.

"She didn't go to rehab, she found God and got clean so she could get her kids back," Nicole replied defensively.

"Same difference," Natalya stated through a mouthful of Doritos.

It was then that their leader decided to speak.

"You wanna know who the biggest slut is?" Madison asked rather maliciously. As usual, whenever she spoke their attention was all on her. This was a rather popular conversation topic for these girls, even though the answer changed on a fairly regular basis.

"What, you're saying someone's challenging me for the title?" Natalya said with a laugh in her thick Russian accent.

"No, I said biggest slut, not the one who could spread her legs the widest," Madison replied with an evil grin.

"Ah, then I guess not," Natalya replied.

"I'm guessing it'd still be between Kendal or Amanda this week?" Zora asked in a rather bored tone. She never seemed to really get into the cruelty that the other girls had, but all the same stayed with them because they seemed to like her, and it did boost her popularity tremendously. Even so, with these popular threads of conversation, hearing the same names come up over and over again did get to be a bit wearing after a while.

"You're an astute one," Madison shot back, "wanna take a wild guess who and how I know?"

"Oh why should I guess when you're ever so enthused to spill the beans?" Zora asked sarcastically.

"Seriously, what is up your butt today?" Madison responded angrily.

"She's on the rag, better watch out or I think she's liable to kill ya," Nicole joked. She got Madison to smile and knew she had done well. Much as Madison loved making fun of the lesser people, she even more enjoyed making fun of her own crew. So long as it wasn't you, Nicole learned that Madison was immensely more tolerable. Zora was an easy punching bag because she always knew how to send it right back to Madison.

"Ah, ok, you can't help yourself, I'll let you slide," Madison said, "Anyhow, I heard it through Caryn who got it on good word that Amanda got drunk and double-teamed both Alan and Jeffrey on Tuesday."

"The both of them?" Nicole asked, "Didn't think she had it in her for a three-way."

"I'm more impressed she fucked Alan," Natalya responded with little surprise, "I didn't think she went for the jungle fever."

"Oh yeah she did, even said she let Alan slip it up her ass," Madison continued.

"What a slut!" Nicole added.

"Like I say, I got it on a good authority. I gotta see if I can ask Jeffrey or Alan, see if they can confirm if her tits are real or not. I mean, good god, those things are too fucking big," Madison said spitefully.

"They're real," Zora responded.

"How the hell do you know that?" Madison asked.

"Seen her in the shower after gym, she's got no scars and they hang real," Zora revealed.

Madison looked at her with the slightest appearance of defeat on her face. That disappeared quickly as that malicious grin returned.

"You were looking at her tits, so you got a bit of dyke in you after all," she fired back.

"No more than you. Come on, you and Natalya do that whole Frenching thing at parties to fuck with the guys and you're saying that doesn't make you a little bit gay?" Zora replied calmly.

"She's got a point you know," Natalya added.

At a rare loss for words, Madison looked off in the distance and apparently tried to regain her momentum. Nicole could see the gears working in Madisons head, trying to figure out some other form of cruelty or entertainment to latch onto. Watching a smile cross the girls face, Nicole had a decent idea that Madison had found both.

"Fat bitch at one o'clock," Madison said with malicious glee.

Craning her neck to follow Madison's line of sight, Nicole could indeed see the fat bitch. None of them knew her real name or really cared to since, well, she was ugly and unpopular (and probably stupid, though none of them could really knew enough to either confirm or deny this), but she was a very easy target because she never fought back. Though tall for a girl, the fat bitch was obscenely overweight as far as the girls on the steps were concerned. With braces, dumpy-looking and stringy shoulder-length hair and some of the most blindingly painful looking acne the school had to offer, she made an even easier punching bag due to her usual attire of outlet-store clothing. However, today of all days she wore a dress. Not only a dress, but a blindingly yellow one with white frills. On her it hardly looked pretty, but it definitely made her look more like a girl than usual. What didn't make her look all that pretty was how she was cramming her face full of what looked like a pile of Hostess snack cakes on a bench by the quad. Nicole could see her staring off rather dreamily into the distance while she kept her feet clear of the grass and mud.

"Wow, looks like she thinks she's a chick today," Madison commented offhand.

"Dress does make her look fatter though dontcha think?" Kimberly added.

"Yeah," Nicole added in an attempt to keep up the conversation, "looks like she ate Big Bird."

This one got all the other girls to laugh, Madison especially hard. Nicole felt good to have made her laugh, but all the same felt nervous with that look that came across Madison's face as she guffawed. She could see that something bad was going on up there and as much as she liked Madison, Nicole wanted to be nowhere near her at that moment.

"Hey you got her in your earlier classes, Kim, you haven't had your pictures taken yet, have you?" Madison asked in an attempt to look offhand.

"No, we haven't yet, why?" Kimberly asked.

"Oh, just thinking of a way of putting her in her place."

Then looking down to the row of jocks who sat in the lower portion of the amphitheatre, Madison smiled widely. She walked in a manner that would turn as many of their heads as possible, swinging her hips and accentuating her breasts as she knew oh so well how to do. Eventually it seemed she found what she wanted in a doe-eyed junior none of them knew, and Madison bent down to whisper into his ear. None of them knew what was going through Madison's head, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to realize that whatever it was, was not a good thing.

As usual in these really bad situations, Zora knew well enough to take the smart way out.

"All right girls, I'm out of here. Catch me around if she doesn't get arrested for this, all right?"

Swinging her backpack over her shoulder, Zora quickly descended the steps and disappeared. It seemed however that Madison got what she wanted, as the junior jock smiled widely and nodded his head fiercely to whatever her suggestion was. He quickly grabbed up his pile of textbooks and made a quick path across the quad, rather conspicuously trying to look inconspicuous. Madison ascended the steps to her friends again, wiggling her hips in a manner that would give the boys below the best show possible before whatever she had planned went into action.

"What'd you do?" Nicole asked curiously.

"Wait my young apprentice, and you shall see," Madison said with mock seriousness.

They watched as the junior ambled clumsily over to the walkway behind the fat bitch and wrestled with his pile of textbooks. He walked with purpose while trying to look graceless, stacking the books high while he snuck up behind the girl. Seeing his in finally, the boy feigned a trip and spilled both himself and the books directly into the fat bitch's back. She let out a yelp of surprise before falling face forward into the massive mud puddle before her. The girl splashed down in the mud like a heavy stone in a puddle, spraying the brown muck every which way and staining her bright yellow dress a murky brown. Getting up on her hands and knees, the girl seemed to finally realize what was happening as she squealed out in pain and humiliation. People all around her laughed, while the junior feigned apology and gathered up his books.

With laughter breaking out throughout the quad and among her friends, Madison cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, "FEEL AT HOME YET PIGGY?!"

This got even more uproarious laughter from those who were watching as the fat bitch got to her feet and tried to run off. Slipping in the mud she had trailed onto the concrete walkway, the girl fell flat on her butt hard to an even louder roar of laughs.

With tears streaming down her face due to laughter, Kimberly asked, "What'd that cost you?"

"What?" Madison asked as she tried to listen over the laughter.

"What'd you have to do to get the jock to do that?" Kimberly asked in full.

"Ah, I told him that if he did that Natalya would take off her shirt and blow him. You up for that?" Madison asked her friend.

"He looked cute enough, I don't see why not," Natalya shrugged, getting even more laughs from their small circle.

Though she found the situation funnier than hell, part of Nicole's mind was more than aware that she had seen something really bad go down. Madison's cruelty knew no bounds, and she was vicious even for her own amusement. She laughed heartily and loudly at another's misery, and Nicole was simply glad that it wasn't her. Had she known better, Nicole likely would have been scared.

* * *

Standing before Nicole in the hallway of Grover's Mill High School was the girl she had only ever known as "that fat bitch." Outside of the game she might have looked a little bizarre, maybe even stupid as far as Nicole and her friends were concerned. In game on the other hand, Sadie Bourne, a.k.a. Girl # 16, looked absolutely terrifying. Her usually robust appearance seemed almost squared and straightened in the heavy parka and arctic pants she wore. Her stringy brown hair fell around puffy eyes that had clearly been crying not too long ago, yet now appeared to be full of hatred and rage. Her mouth contorted into an animalistic grimace that struck more terror into Nicole's heart than she could have imagined possible. The girl carried what looked like a long baton in her hands, but what it was Nicole couldn't tell. _Crap, you gotta do something and you gotta do it fast, just roll and grab the ice ax up there, you've gotta be faster than her, right? _

Darting a hand to the side, the girl meant to pull herself to her feet. Sadie was faster. Her weapon held out like a spear, she darted forward and jammed it at Nicole's exposed wrist. As twin prongs on the weapon came into contact with Nicole's skin, she felt an explosion of pain shoot through her entire body as it felt like every hair on her body stood on end. The crackling from Sadie's cattle prod sounded like ice picks scraping on bone to Nicole's ears. Not taking any chances, Sadie stabbed the weapon again directly into Nicole's left eye. The electric shock blew Nicole's eye apart in a mess of brown goo as she screamed in agony from yet another traumatic shock to the body.

With Nicole taken down, Sadie calmly looked at the temporarily incapacitated girl. There was so much she wanted to do, so much pain that she wanted to inflict. It was exciting really. For so many years Nicole and her friends had made her life a living hell. She wanted to make every one of their last moments just as bad. _Though Zora's already dead, ah well, can't win 'em all, right? Still some other blondes out there who have it coming to them._

Grabbing Nicole's right foot with one of her powerful hands, Sadie began to drag her down to the main hall. Nicole cried out each time her head hit a stair, fighting pitifully as Sadie dragged her down the hall. She clawed at the floor, watching idly as her fingers gouged a light trail in the tile floor. One nail broke entirely off (_crap, really need a manicure now_), and she was only idly aware that she would soon be dead. _Crap, this really is bad isn't it? I'm going to die and this fat bitch is going to do it to me, isn't she? I guess I'm going to die a virgin after all._

Having dragged Nicole into the main hall, Sadie grabbed her other foot. Despite her generally overweight and dumpy appearance, Sadie was an immensely strong girl. Grabbing Nicole's other foot, Sadie rather easily lifted the much smaller girl up by the feet and swung her into the wall. Papers from a nearby bulletin board fluttered down all around her, one a plea for a ride to Grand Rapids to attend a Nick Rivers concert, another a pro-birth control poster stating, "Even Battle Royale Winners Need to Use Protection" with smiling pictures of Ashley Vasquez and Alonso Cain (the winner from Maine) beneath the words. Nicole fell to the ground with a thud, moments away from losing her consciousness. Maintaining her iron grip on Nicole's feet, she swung the girl with all her might yet again. This time Nicole slammed through a glass case that contained a fire hose, the glass slicing her exposed face and parka miserably. _Yes, this will do quite nicely._

Sadie looked down on the girl on the floor. She blubbered through that ruined tooth and her gruesomely exposed eye socket. Sadie was fully aware that as a human being she probably should have had pity for the girl, but considering everything she had been through felt more than justified. Excited. _Yes, you really do want to do this. She deserves it. They all deserve this. They did this to you, and now it is your turn to take payback. If this were a revenge story, you'd be the hero. By killing them, you are the hero. You are the fucking dynamite. You are a goddess._

Unraveling the hose from its coil, she threw a good length of it over a hanging sprinkler fixture in the ceiling. Methodically she wrapped the end of the hose around Nicole's neck and tightened it in a quick and dirty knot. Not quite a noose, but she didn't know how to tie a hangman's knot and didn't want to even try to fake it.

Nicole put up no resistance. Sadie didn't even know if she was conscious or not, and didn't find herself caring. The girl would be dead, that was what mattered most. Taking the slack end of the hose into her hands Sadie began to pull as hard as she could, jerking the top half of Nicole's body into the air. Nicole croaked slightly, but other than that did little. Pulling even harder, she lifted Nicole bodily to her feet. _Almost there, you got her good..._

With one last jerk, Sadie lifted Nicole off the ground. The girls feet kicked lightly, her hands fluttered in an effort to lift them to her neck, but beyond that she did very little. Air crackled and croaked through her throat, her face turned a deep shade of reddish-purple, and her mouth opened and closed idly. It took three minutes for Nicole to stop moving, and in another two she was dead.

Sadie knew her tormentor was dead, but still felt as if her work was not done. _Make this a message, get the rest of them to see what is coming to them... Let them know what you can do, let them know how wrong they were and how they should not have messed with you._

The girl took only a few moments to make an example of Nicole's body. She was never once aware that she was being watched from down the hall by a pair of admiring eyes.


	9. Hour 2: 50 Contestants Remaining

* * *

**Hour 2**

**50 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

Misty Cruz, a.k.a. Girl # 7, was scared. She wasn't the only one, she knew she wasn't the only one, yet still of them all she was perhaps scared the worst. Cowering in the corner of a kitchen in some random house and cradling the semi-automatic pistol they had put in her bag, the girl did the best she could to avoid breaking down entirely. She rocked back and forth slowly, muttering to herself as many show tune lyrics as she could remember. Anything to get out of all this.

"_I feel pretty, oh so pretty, that the city should give me its key, a committee should be organized to honor me..._"

It wasn't the best of ways to manage with things, but it helped in the moment. It was a distraction, at least that was good. When she was on stage, that was when things were always at their best. That's when she felt most at home. Cute as a button though she may have been, the young Latina with the short curly hair had always found social situations to be intimidating. There were always a lot of people, and strangers, that was always bad. _Mama always said that you had to get rid of those shells, shed 'em, molt 'em, right?_

The theatre had done some good there; she would always be thankful for that. It was as good a way as any to actually get out there and at least try to show the world that she wasn't just some wilting flower and could do something. And it was there she found a family. Back home, there had never been any semblance of family unless you counted the few moments out of everyday when mom was between drinks or the occasional weekend when dad would stop by. But in the theatre, they were a family. That was where everyone supported each other, working on the next school play, laughing together, partying together. There were outsiders, sure (_Sophia can be quite the bitch, can't she?_) but all in all they were a happy group.

But none of that was here. None of it was in the game. It should have made her happy that most everyone she cared about was not in the game (though there were some faces she recognized on the bus), but it didn't. She knew it was selfish, but she wanted there to be someone she knew. The more people the better. The better the buffer, the better her chances for survival. _You'll find someone, you always do. Someone is out there that'll take care of you, someone out there..._

The house seemed solid though, that was nice. It's walls were not as nice as the walls created by the validation of her friends, but they would almost certainly hold. _Hold enough for what, is somebody going to be blowing these houses down like the Big Bad Wolf? Come out, come out or I'll blow our house down? Shouting "Not by the hairs of my chinny chin chin!" really won't help you know._

The girl smiled idly to herself as a tear went down her cheek. _But you won't have to shout, no, you got a weapon, remember? You got a weapon in this fucking game, but do you think you can use it? Seriously, do you think you could get down and ugly and use it if you really wanted to? Do you honestly think that you could-_

There was a thud outside the house (_it's the wind_), and the girl immediately tensed up. With her gun held out firmly she hoped beyond all hopes that it would go away, be nothing and go away. _Oh god, please don't let it be someone and don't let them come in. I'm not ready to die yet, I'm too young, wait, I don't know, please help me, for the love of god someone please help me, please just let me get out of here and be good and be young and be me, what the hell am I doing here?_

A pair of hands carrying what looked like a long pipe appeared at the window a fraction of a second before it was broken in. Large shards of glass glinting like daggers from the harsh white light from the floods outside flew inward around the kitchen, and a pair of hands forced themselves inside. Whoever it was had not checked where they were going, but Misty cared little about this. All she knew was that her safety zone had been breached and that she had little time to do anything about it. Misty raised her pistol just in time to see a head appear in the window.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Her gun flew wildly around as she tried to shoot the intruder. Of the three shots, two hit the walls while another hit what little remained of the window's glass. It seemed to do the trick though, as the figure outside let out a yelp of surprise and tumbled backwards, it's pipe-like weapon (actually a rifle or shotgun Misty could now see) flying through the air alongside it.

At that, Misty ran. She bolted for the front door, flew through it and down into the street. For a brief moment she thought she could hear a voice behind her shouting "Wait!", but she took no time to heed it. The girl ran, she had no other choice. Finding the turnoff onto Main Street, the girl began her sprint up into what felt most like civilization.

She ran up the street, her feet slipping and crunching through the thin layer of snow that covered it. She could see steps in the snow from previous contestants who had crossed paths, and found it all to be too oppressing. People were everywhere, they were all out to get her like the attacker in the house. They were out to get her, and she found it all too terrifying. _Help me, please, someone help me, come on, someone, anyone, help me, make me feel good, just tell me what to do, but someone please help me!_

Collapsing to her knees in the middle of the street, Misty Cruz screamed to the heavens. She screamed until her lungs were raw, she screamed without any care for who would hear, she screamed until it all came out. She screamed as if her life depended on it. She screamed until she began to laugh. It all seemed so stupid, it really did. It all was really, but she could do it. She knew it, with just enough effort, it would be possible to do it. Collecting herself, the girl got to her feet and tried to compose herself.

"Misty, are you all right?" a calm voice asked her from behind. Had she not recognized it, odds are she would have whirled around and tried her best to shoot the figure right then and there. Thankfully for the voices owner, it was the one that Misty wanted to hear the most.

"Frank!" she cried out, whirling around and hugging the parka-clad boy behind her. Most of his face was covered in a dark blue balaclava, but those eyes and that voice were unmistakably Frank Luczak, a.k.a. Boy # 14. A great part of her was sick to see him in the game, but an even more selfish part of her was glad that he was here. He would make her feel better, he always did. He always knew just how to act at times like this. The boy hugged her back warmly, squeezing her with just enough pressure to calm her down. _Great, you screamed and had a breakdown in front of him, that'll really impress him._

"It's all right," he said calmly, "I'm here."

"I've been so scared!" she responded with a sob.

"Yeah, it has been pretty bad, hasn't it," the boy replied evenly.

"We have to keep moving!" the girl shouted frantically as she tried to regain her senses, "someone, a boy I think, he broke in and tried to get me, I shot at him but I don't think I got him and-"

He rubbed her hair, embracing her more closely, "Don't worry about it, we're together now. Come on, let's get out of the cold. I got this balaclava at a sporting goods shop that was pretty small but warm. And solid too. We could hide out there for a while if you would like to."

Breaking the embrace, Misty looked into her saviors piercing green eyes, "That sounds awesome. Could you lead the way?"

"It would be my pleasure my fair lady," he said with the tip of an imaginary hat, "so long as you keep a watch out. I was not graced with a weapon that would be of any use."

"Really?" she asked, trying to get focused on anything but the hell they were in.

"Yeah, I looked in my bag hoping for a form of defense, instead I was awarded a Frisbee. They have quite the sense of humor, those Battle Royale people, don't they?" the boy said with a slight chuckle.

With the slightest of smiles, Misty couldn't help but feel comforted at his presence. He had always been her favorite, but then again he always seemed to know the most. Frank Luczak had always been the best actor in school in Misty's eyes. It just seemed to be an ingrained talent, but he just knew how to read a role and act it as it was meant to be acted with all the passion his body possessed, and _that_ was a lot of passion. He'd won an award for his portrayal of Juror # 8 in _12 Angry Men._ People cried during his death scene as Tony in _West Side Story _(_why did Betsy get Maria, I'm more Latin than she could ever be and would've gotten to kiss him too_). He could even perform a heavy rather well, as he did with the part of Stanley Kowalski in _A Streetcar Named Desire_. In short, he was everything that Misty had ever wanted to be as an actor.

But he never seemed stuck up about it. Not once. He was handsome and talented, but never once used his skills to try and pick up on girls (or boys, there was a constant debate even among the drama students as to what Frank was). If anything, he seemed to have a constant humility about what he did, saying he only acted because he was good at it. True, he was never the greatest of team players, but he was neither a prima donna nor was he a pain (on the contrary he was obsessed with professionalism), he just seemed to have a hard time recognizing how other people would have their own issues.

Yet in the context of a Battle Royale, whatever minor negatives existed about the boy could be thrown out the window. Misty knew what he was like out of the theatre, and that was all that mattered. He was kind, witty, and above all else charming. _Who knows, you might have a chance now that you're all going to die. Wait girl, that's morbid, funny though._

At that thought, she couldn't help but giggle softly.

"What's that one for?" Frank asked casually as he looked into her eyes.

"Oh, nothing," Misty replied, "just thinking about the Frisbee. I'm sorry, I know this is really messed up and all, but that was really random."

"I know, they're really big into random in this game aren't they? Make sure everyone has an even chance and all, but I really don't know how you're supposed to have an even chance when you get a Frisbee," Frank remarked jokingly.

"Seriously!" the girl exclaimed with mock humor.

They continued to trudge through the snow in silence for a few moments, Misty holding onto her pistol rather laxly while Frank walked rather casually with his hands in his parka pockets.

"So what are we going to do?" Misty asked finally.

"How do you mean?" Frank asked calmly.

"I mean, what are we going to do after we get to the sporting goods store?" Misty asked. Even with seeing Frank, the question remained on her mind. He made things feel better, if not actually _better_, but she did have a feeling that he would make it all right.

"Well, I had one idea..." Frank admitted with a shrug of the shoulders.

"Oh yeah? What is-" Misty asked just as Frank pulled the heavy revolver from his parka pocket and shot her in the head. The blast from the heavy Colt Anaconda revolver was frighteningly loud, the impact at close range tearing the top half of Misty's head off in a massive explosion of gore. As her body fell, her mouth held a look of moderate surprise.

Frank's face changed little as he watched her die. Her body twitched briefly, allowing for the slightest fraction of a smile to cross his face before returning to the curious look it held before. _So that's what murder feels like. There's not much to it really, is there?_

If there was anything that Frank was plagued by, it was rampant curiosity. There was also the likelihood that he was an absolute sociopath, and that was one of the many things in life that he had been curious about, but in the grander scheme of things it was perhaps at the bottom of the list. He had known for some time that he did not relate to other people like most did, as he always had a hard time acknowledging that other people were even all that important. It was hard trying to manage a life where interpersonal relations were necessary, but at least those could be acted. With enough talent, anything could be acted... that always made Frank smile.

Simply and methodically, the boy removed Misty's backpack from her body and the pistol from her hand. He watched with the mildest of curiosity as what was probably her brains leaked in a red jelly-like mass into the snow, but could hardly register that it was once somebody he knew. It had been Misty at one point, sure, but there was nothing to care about in there. She probably had a crush on him at one point or another, but that mattered little. None of it mattered really.

But curiosity... that always mattered. Frank was a boy curious over many a topic. However, the unfortunate constraints of American law (though they were disappearing all the time thankfully) had never allowed the boy to delve into his greatest interests. For the longest time he had wanted to study the human condition and the nature of the human body's survivability. Though he had toyed with the concept of pursuing a career into medicine or psychology in the past, he had found himself resigned to being an actor upon entering the senior year. It wasn't that that was necessarily a bad thing, he had always been good at it, too good even, but it just wasn't... fun. It didn't arouse his excitement as much as the study of people did.

But then there came the Battle Royale. The great and glorious Battle Royale. If there was anything that would do best to empower a someone with boundless curiosity, it would be the rules free environment of the Battle Ro-

A resounding blast that blew up a swath of snow around Frank shook him from his thoughts. A boy approached bearing a shotgun, leveling off and firing another shot.

"You sick fuck!" the other boy yelled.

Not feeling competent enough at the moment to engage in a full on firefight, Frank whirled on his feet and made to run away. There would be time to fight, there would be time to play, but that would be for another time today... Feeling comfortable with his own wit and proud of himself, the boy fled.

* * *

Carlos Bautista, a.k.a. Boy # 6, approached the girls body warily. It was clear that she was dead, there was just so damn much blood, but he had to be sure. He had to be sure for her sake and for his. With his shotgun held high, he used his foot to turn her over onto her back. Even the quickest of looks at her face was enough to confirm what he feared most. It was Misty.

"Son of a bitch!" he muttered to himself, kicking a large blast of snow away from her body. _I should have been more careful, I should have put the gun down. But who puts their gun down here? Christ, it got her running, she could be alive now, but instead she's dead, it doesn't matter what you did do, it matters what you should've done. You fucked up, and you fucked up bad._

All he had wanted to do was find his way into a house to stay low in. Stay low and figure things out. Instead, he broke into the one room that housed Misty Cruz, one of the sweetest and most genuine people he had known in his life, and he had to have his gun out. He had the gun out and scared her, and she fired upon him thinking he was one of the bad guys. He made her run, and he wasn't able to catch up in time. She ran on, ran into some other boy, and was killed for it.

"I'm sorry Misty, I'm so sorry," he said as he knelt down beside her body. Using one free hand, Carlos closed both of her eyes.

All he'd wished was that he had actually seen the face of the person who killed her. If he had seen their face, he would have known exactly who he had to kill. Instead, he saw a balaclava at a distance and wound up trying to kill someone with a weapon he barely knew how to use. The shotgun blast went wide, and Misty's assassin ran off. _He'll pay though. He'll pay, and I'll make sure of it. You got nothing to worry about Misty, I promise._

Getting back to his feet, the boy made sure to hold his shotgun in a defensive position. Carlos had gone into the game a non-violent human being, but seeing someone like Misty get killed made it seem all the more real to him.

Chambering another round with a satisfying KER-CHUNK, Carlos Bautista ran off into the night.


	10. Hour 3: 49 Contestants Remaining

* * *

Hour 3

49 Contestants Remaining

* * *

Before having been chosen as a contestant in the Eighth Annual United States Battle Royale, Mallory Bell, a.k.a. Girl # 1, had never once considered that there was anything wrong with the program. After all, it was every citizen's duty to not question the government and trust that they had the people's best interests always in mind. There may have been times in the past when she questioned the games exploitative nature and it's glorification of brutality, but those moments were brief at best. If you wanted to make it by in the world, you had to go with the flow.

And went with the flow she did. She was pretty and smart and capitalized on both greatly. Honor roll. Homecoming queen. Chose the right friends, popular without getting her in trouble. She knew how to do everything right. Hell, she _did_ everything right. By all rights she _was_ the American Dream.

Still, she wound up in the Battle Royale.

After doing everything like she was supposed to, after blindly supporting a country whose positions she rarely questioned, after being the pinnacle of the all-American girl, she was taken into the Battle Royale. That made her angry.

All the same, her indoctrination into the growing rebel movement in the game happened by pure happenstance. Following logic that had already led some to the building (and a few more for better or worse in the future), Mallory had simply sought out the church because it sounded like it would be a secure building. Making entry through the main doors, she screamed when she was set upon by seven people holding a variety of weapons and blinding her with flashlights.

It had been the presence of Sophia Apollinar, a.k.a. Girl # 6, that had gotten her to calm down. Isaac Freemantle, a.k.a. Boy # 17, had tried his best to get Mallory to join the side, but having never trusted him she could not respond. But Sophia... she was someone Mallory could trust. Sophia was a great actress, but she would never bullshit you. Isaac... he just was. He was a fighter, but a fighter without real reason. He was a man who chose to fight for the sake of fighting, not one who wanted to accomplish something, rather someone who wanted to simply see if he could make a scratch in the system. More often than not Mallory had written him off as an idiot and a quack who wouldn't make it past eighteen due to his political beliefs. But here, everything changed. Here he might be the only one capable of making an escape possible.

And _that_ was why Mallory stayed.

Of course it didn't make things any better that Isaac and his cronies stood around the church's pulpit planning things as they did. Mallory wasn't asked to join, nor did she believe that she wanted to. This was one of the times where she wanted to let the people who knew what they were doing do what they may.

"So what's your drink?" a voice asked from the pew behind her. Looking around, Mallory could see the smiling face of Darwin Wong, a.k.a. Boy # 20. Mallory could only smile back. He was nice enough and pretty hot (even with that spiked hair she didn't usually like), but hung out with weird crowds. More or less a nerd, he was pretty popular, yet all the same hung out with the criminal and extreme sports crowd in school. All throughout high school he had been covered in a variety of bandages from his parkour activities, but if the videos he sold online were any indication, the wounds must have been worth it.

"Pardon?" Mallory asked as she got her bearings back.

"Drink, you know, a liquid you pour down your throat for the sake of alleviating thirst or looking for a good time? I must lament that my supply of the alleviating thirst variety is quite limited, but if you want to have a good time m'lady I have quite a selection," he said with good humor as he opened his bag. Where there should have been food, bottles of water and other necessary survival supplies, Darwin had filled his backpack with bottles of all sorts of liquor. Whiskey, vodka, rum, gin, the boy knew how to pack.

"Of course if there's nothing that strikes your interest here, we got another bag full up front," the boy continued.

"No thanks, I'm good," Mallory replied with a friendly smile, "I don't think I should be getting drunk now anyway. Wouldn't do anyone a lot of good, don't you think?"

"Probably correct, but it does take the edge off a bit, don't it?" he asked.

"Fair enough," Mallory responded with a sigh.

"You don't gotta worry you know," Darwin said, "we're all going to be all right."

"Are we now?" Mallory asked. It was hard to keep the tears away, but she managed for the most part.

"Isaac knows what he's doing," Darwin said. Thinking about it further, he added, "I mean, the guy's a fruit loop, he thinks he knows more than he does, but all the same the guy knows a lot. I mean, you know some people just _know_ things, right? Well he's one of them. He's got his own thing going on, but all the same if there's one person here I'd trust to get us out, it'd be him. He's got enough of a fuck-the-government complex about him that I'd be disappointed if he accomplished nothing, ya know?"

Mallory couldn't help but laugh softly, "Yes, I do know."

"See, I got you to laugh, laughing means things are all right, huh?" Darwin said as he playfully nudged her shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah it does," the girl responded with a resigned shrug. _Or it means you're going insane._..

* * *

Though an odd trio in looks and background, the three boys who walked the side streets of Grover's Mill whom Amberlaine High had dubbed "The Three Amigos" were quite easily the best of friends. Still, it did not stop them from succumbing to the troubles inherent in the Battle Royale, especially one held in upstate Michigan in the middle of winter.

"It's fucking cold here man," Ruben Wood, a.k.a. Boy # 5, said as he rammed his hands into his parka pockets for what seemed the millionth time in the last hour.

"Yeah, but it's a dry cold ain't it Rub?" Aziz Haddad, a.k.a. Boy # 8, joked back.

"No man it's a fucking wet kind of cold 'cause we got ourselves snowed on, trudging through the mess of it down the middle of a street in someplace we don't know. It's cold, I'm cold, you're cold, we're all cold, and if we don't find ourselves some nice hidey-hole in the near future we all gonna have ourselves some frostbite!" Ruben replied sharply.

"Well when you put it like that I guess it is a bit on the cold side, ain't it?" Aziz admitted with a smile.

"Guys, you know I love the banter, but until we get undercover I think it would be best if we all just shut up," Basim Sharafi, a.k.a. Boy # 13, noted. Although he was the only one of the trio without a gun, he still managed the most respect. It was kind of how things always were really with The Three Amigos; Basim was the leader, Ruben was either complaining or cracking jokes, and Aziz was around to back up whoever happened to be winning at the time. So it was, so it had always been.

The only difference between the three boys who commanded their own table in the cafeteria and the boys walking the silent and slushy streets of Grover's Mill was the fact that the jokes were fewer here. Ruben (or Rub as they tended to call him, much to his vulgar humored delight) had tried diligently in the early moments of the game to keep things light. Keep people laughing. That was what he always did, that was what he'd always been around for. Whenever things were bad, he would make a joke and try to make them seem a little bit better. Whenever things were good, well, you'd still probably find him joking because then he had a captive audience.

Of course seeing Misty's corpse seemed to have turned the good humor of the situation down a notch. They had followed the sound of gunshots and found her splayed out remains, blood still steaming as it hit the thin layer of snow beneath her. Whoever had done it had gone, but that didn't make the scene any less grisly. Rub had been cracking wise even upon hearing of Zora's death (having been the only one of the trio to see her die, Basim had to deliver the news), but actually seeing a body... that seemed to quiet him down considerably. He was surly, he was rude... he wasn't Rub.

More than anything else, _that_ scared Aziz. Of the trio, he knew that he was always the odd man out. He wasn't as good looking as Basim (_not by a long shot_), he wasn't as funny as Rub, and he certainly wasn't smarter than either of them, but they were friends. They always had been, incongruous as things may have been. Two Muslims and a Baptist; Two Arabs and a Black Kid. They had gone through so many nicknames, so many permutations, but they had always been together for some reason. It had been Basim and Ruben in the beginning, of course Aziz would always admit that, but for some divine reason he had fallen in with them and they had become friends, and that was how things were supposed to be.

But then came the whole mess of the Battle Royale. It threw things all over the place. First there was Basim, fresh off the bus and without his usual confidence after seeing Zora die. Then Rub lost his nerve after seeing Misty's corpse. _Then again, that one was pretty fucked up, wasn't it?_ Now they were a mess. Three guys just wandering down a street hoping they weren't going to be dying in the near future. _This sucks._

"Well we have to do something, don't we?" Aziz said suddenly, "I mean we are walking in the middle of a street freezing our asses off, it does seem to make some sense to get out of the cold don't you think?"

"It would make sense, but we honestly don't know if anywhere is safe," Basim said as he waved his supplied blade (a barong the note with it said), "there could be people anywhere. People looking to hurt us. Hell, we've seen it, there are people out there killing people, don't be naïve here."

"I'm not being naïve, I just don't think we're doing ourselves any good to be out here getting frozen," Aziz replied.

"Yeah man, give us another couple of hours and we're all going to look like Jack Nicholson in a hedge maze if you catch my drift," Ruben quipped, then smiling to himself as if with realization, "HA! I got it back!"

"What?" Basim asked with a bewildered smile.

"I got my mojo back, all right, maybe we're going to be good after all," Ruben responded.

"You're crazy, you do know that, right?" Basim responded with good humor.

"There's a fine line between brilliant and crazy my friends," Ruben responded as he knowingly pointed his pistol at the town.

"So you have a brilliant idea?" Aziz asked with a hopeful smile. _Come on man, bring us back together, just do something, anything, but get us together so we don't have to worry about this anymore. Get us together, and then we'll be good._

"Yeah, get out of the cold," Ruben replied, "seriously guys, this isn't going to help anyone out and you know it. If we can get our bearings, get some warmth, get our minds working in a way that's better than they are right now, we stand a chance. Not a great one, but a good one. We stand a chance, we can regroup, maybe find some more people and maybe get the fuck out of here."

"You actually think that's possible?" Basim asked in a rather amused tone.

"Oh it's definitely possible, it's gotta be possible. They're always thinking of new stuff, but we're the kids who always figure out ways around the new stuff. Remember Otis Shylock, he got out and he wasn't even half as smart as the three of us put together," Ruben replied.

"He also didn't have one of these," Basim said as he pointed to the collar around Rub's neck.

"You're looking at this all from the wrong angle," Ruben said, "we can do this, trust me. We just need to be warm first, that's all."

Though Aziz could tell that Basim was nervous about anything that involved going indoors, there was no denying the siren call of electric heating.

Looking to Rub with a resigned face Basim simply said, "Lead on Magellan."

* * *

The picture wasn't the greatest in the world, but all the same the girl within was beautiful. He could have listed off the traits of her picture from memory in enough detail that even an artist of marginal skill would have had no trouble drawing her. The boy looked to the aged and folded Polaroid with an almost totemistic worship, hoping beyond all hope that the girl within would be safe and that he would find her in time. Simply put, Calvin Spencer, a.k.a. Boy # 11, was a fool in love.

With a scoped hunting rifle slung over one shoulder and the picture in his hands, he sat quite comfortably drinking a cup of coffee in a trailer on the east end of Grover's Mill. It wasn't the nicest of places, but it was poorly lit from the outside and warm, two qualities that gave it a great appeal.

The only problem was that it didn't have Jessica. As it was, Calvin would have gladly traded his left foot for knowledge that Jessica Tyler, a.k.a. Girl # 21, was safe. Either her phone was off or she just wasn't answering it, but calling her cell number had done absolutely nothing. There was always the option of shouting out to the world, but all things considered that too wouldn't be incredibly bright in a game designed in such a way as a Battle Royale.

And so he was stuck with his thoughts in a trailer, waiting for daylight and the hope that he could find her then.

"I will find you," he said idly in the dim hope that wherever she was she could still hear.

Calvin was always one to admit that he was lucky for having gotten with Jessica first. They had met in eighth grade, and though she was a bit on the shy and underdeveloped side, Calvin had fallen in love more or less at first sight. It took a while to gather up the nerve to ask her out, but once he had, they were inseparable. Although he had both glasses and braces, in middle school Calvin was still good looking with his sandy-blonde hair and well-defined facial features. Jessica was something of a blooming flower when Calvin had met her, a shy African-American girl of average looks who exploded into one of the most beautiful and outgoing girls in school over the course of a summer.

And he was there first. That was something always to be proud of. He got her, and he got together with her, and they had been happy. They had been madly in love and they had been happy. There was even a spot in the back of a drawer back in his bedroom in Amberlaine where Calvin had bought a ring, but that one was going to wait until after graduation. Keep things real and normal until graduation, make her an honest woman after that. _How awesome would that have been, huh? Pop the question, head to university, parlay your class treasurer skills in a decent business major, join some bigass company, get a nice house and help her pump out 2.5 kids... that there is the American Dream my good man, the American Dream._

There was gunfire in the distance. Several quick poppings, light and high, probably pistol or rifle fire. There was a pause, and Calvin could only listen. His heart beat heavily, it thudded in his chest almost as loud as the gunfire itself. There were two more quick pops, a pause of about ten seconds and then two heavy gunshot blasts (_shotgun?_). Then there was silence. Fumbling quickly for the wall, Calvin pulled the phone handset from it and considered it. _What if it's like before, what if she's not answering? Fuck it, you have to._

"Please don't be dead," Calvin said as he looked to the number pad on the phone and began to dial. He knew the number by heart, fingers blurring over them as he quickly dialed and hit the 'SEND' button. Two rings, three rings, four rings...

"Hi, you've reached Jessica, I'm not available right now, but please leave a-"

"DAMN IT!" he shouted as he tossed the handset across the room in frustration. The tiny collection of plastic and circuits exploded as it hit the trailers far wall. Normally cool and collected, Calvin collapsed to his chair shaking. Instead of being the dependable guy he always tried to be, he sat with his head in his hands, rocking back and forth slightly as he spoke to himself.

"Please be all right, please be all right, I'm going to find you I swear, please be all right..."

* * *

The only thing that saved the life of Stacey Golden, a.k.a. Girl # 4, was the fact that her attacker was a very lousy shot. Having taken a moment to get her bearings in Grover's Mill Municipal Park beneath the statue of a turn-of-the-century man with a rather odd mustache, she made an excellent target as she checked her map. A stocky and reasonably slow girl with curly black hair, anyone with even the slightest amount of firearm training would have had a hard time missing her.

Within the context of the game itself, her map had thus far proven to be her greatest adversary. Though she knew the basics of using a compass and could see that the map was rather well labeled, getting the two to correlate was a rather difficult task. She was an advocate, not a boy scout; this all took her horribly off guard. Environmental protest rallies she could handle. People slamming doors in her face in refusal of signing a petition she could handle. Hell, even the weird curvy sword (the info sheet with it called it a Kris) she had been given in her bag she could handle, albeit awkwardly. But the map, the map was a pain in the ass. She could find her way to the town, she could find the main streets in the town, but beyond that she had absolutely no clue what she was doing. _The church should be safe, right? Maybe, but you have no clue where that is now do you? The high school maybe? Wait, same problem. Fuck, just get inside and get your panties out of a twist, it's fucking cold out here!_

She had no idea that a figure had been stalking her for the last twenty minutes, following her as she awkwardly carried that sword and map of hers, waiting for the right time to attack. She stood simply in place at the base of the statue so as to present a very easy target for any attacker. One good shot and she would have gone down easily.

Thankfully for her, Paxton Algers, a.k.a. Boy # 22, had never handled a firearm in his entire life. With the M1 Garand balanced precariously in his hands, the boy thought he had her sighted perfectly and took a shot. Instead, he blew off a small chunk of stone from the statue's pelvis.

Stacey screamed, ducking instinctively as Paxton fired several more times, bullets whining every which way (two more lodged firmly in the belly and crotch of the statue respectively) but at her. Heart pounding, the girl did the only thing that seemed safe: duck quickly behind the statue. _Oh crap this is real, this is fucking real, he's on the other side, he'll get you if you don't get out of here, oh crap, just stay cool, grab your sword and swing it at him, just do what you can and-_

"Peek-a-boo!" the pretty boy shouted as he jumped around the statue with rifle aimed squarely at Stacey's chest. He looked at her with an intense glare in his eyes, almost as if he was trying to psych himself up for what he needed to do. That pause was all Stacey needed. At this range, any mistake would be deadly.

With all the force she could manage, the girl swung her sword broadside against Paxton's rifle. In sheer surprise he fired off two more shots, the empty clip firing out with an audible PING. The first shot simply threw up a blast of snow, while the second sent white fire shooting up her left arm. Stacey cried out in pain as a small trail of blood trickled through the torn arm of her parka. She had been shot. It hurt like hell.

"Hey, hey, stop that!" a boy she could not see yelled.

Paxton looked around in a desperate attempt to find whoever the voice belonged to. He fumbled about desperately to reload the rifle, and seeing the opportunity Stacey screamed.

"He's trying to kill me, HELP!"

Whoever had interrupted Paxton's attack fired a deafening gunshot blast, seemingly into the air.

"Get the hell out of here!" the unseen boy yelled.

Paxton looked on with wild eyes, hands shaking as he tried to continue reloading his rifle. Sensing her opportunity, Stacey lunged with her sword at the boy. The blade landed shallowly in the left side of his belly, but it was enough to get him to cry out in pain. As she withdrew the blade, Paxton turned in time to meet another shotgun blast. Had he not turned, he would have been killed. Instead, his backpack exploded in a spray of fabric, water and demolished MRE's. The boy spun all the way around on his feet in a disoriented manner from the blast, yet somehow never lost his feet. Looking back at his two attackers, Paxton fled into the night.

Standing up despite the pain in her arm, Stacey could only marvel at what had just happened. In the course of maybe twenty, thirty seconds tops, she had been attacked, shot, fought back, and watched a boy she had grown up alongside try to kill her, get stabbed and shot. It was intense to say the least.

"Are you all right?" her savior asked.

"Yeah, I'm..." Stacey began as she looked to the boy who had saved her. She had been expecting someone big, someone strong and intimidating even. A knight in shining armor perhaps, bearing a giant machine gun capable of destroying the enemy in a matter of moments. Instead she found Conrad Ripley, a.k.a. Boy # 18. A bit on the hefty side and sporting a thick pair of glasses, Conrad was more known for his generally quiet nature and his accomplishments in the theatre department. Now he was standing by her, expertly reloading a double-barreled shotgun as if he did it every day.

"I'm fine," Stacey finished, wincing at the wound to her arm.

"I can fix that up for you if you'd like," Conrad replied as he finished loading the shotgun and held it loosely in his hands.

"Fix what up?" Stacey asked.

"Your arm, my dad showed me how, if I can find a needle and thread I can fix up your wound," Conrad replied rather nervously as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"Why'd your dad show you how to stitch up a gunshot wound?" Stacey responded as she balanced her sword on one shoulder. It felt all right to trust Conrad, but she kept on her guard. _It's the ones who seem the most trustworthy, the ones who seem the most vulnerable you have to worry about. But he looks safe, doesn't he? Well, he looks safe, but he also looks like one of those guys who is bound to go shooting up an office building some day._

"He always wants to be prepared in case of a rainy day I think, or a nuclear holocaust, something like that," Conrad replied with a wavering smirk.

"What?" Stacey asked confusedly.

"It's a long story," Conrad responded with a genuine smile, "I'm really good, I swear. And I've got a gun. I think if you wanted to use that thing on me by now you would have, so I'm pretty sure you're OK. If you want we could protect each other, you know, two heads are better than one aren't they?"

_You almost lost it to some guy with a half-assed attack with a gun, what if someone more serious comes along? He seems to know what he's doing, he's got a good gun, and he can help you keep from bleeding to death. What the hell, right?_

"Can you read a map?" Stacey asked.

"No problem, I can navigate damn near anything if you give me a set of lats and longs," Conrad said confidently.

Stacey paused for only a moment's worth of consideration. It still didn't seem to be the greatest choice in the world, but there were certainly worse. All in all, her options didn't seem to be too many.

"It's a date."


	11. Hour 4: 49 Contestants Remaining

* * *

Hour 4

49 Contestants Remaining

* * *

"So you're dying?" Danny Arkham asked with a puff of steam. It was too fucking cold in the back yard to be outside, but as he and his compatriot had an unfortunate addiction to the substance known as nicotine that had a hard time being quenched, they remained there all the same.

"Yeah, but we're all dying," the boy with the buzz cut replied.

"I know, but you're like, really dying?" Danny asked again, flexing his fingers in the leather gloves he wore to keep the blood flowing.

"Yes, and?" the other boy responded.

"I'm sorry, it's just not everyday you hear a good friend of yours is going to die, it's a little fucked up if you know what I mean," Danny responded.

"True enough, I guess it would be weird, wouldn't it?" the boy with the buzz cut replied rather calmly.

"So what are you going to do about it? They got chemo or something? Surgery?"

"I'm supposed to have a year plus or minus, assuming it doesn't metastasize into other systems sooner rather than later," the other boy said as he took a puff from his cigarette, "I could go the route of chemo and surgery and probably get a few more months, but I'm not gonna fight it. Fuck, in this time I got left I thoroughly intend to be about as self-destructive a human being as I can be."

"You're not going to try and fight it?" Danny asked with confusion.

"Why should I just add one more virus cell to this wonderfully overcrowded being we call a world?" the boy with the buzz cut said as he crushed his cigarette out in an ash tray.

"I'm not following," Danny responded.

"I wouldn't expect you to. We," the boy said as he pointed to them both, then sweeping his arms around to encompass the grand scheme of things, "we as human beings are for lack of a better word a virus, a strain on the organism that is the world. As a species we are fundamentally destructive, fighting with one another and the planet at the same time in an effort to see who can be the most destructive. We created war, environmental destruction and religion, trust me, we are a virus. The world would do good to get rid of us, wouldn't you think?"

Much as Danny didn't want to admit it, his friend did have a point. The world... it had become a pretty bad place of late. The Greater Republic of East Asia had maintained its stranglehold on the Eastern Hemisphere, subjugating and wiping out any and all who opposed their regime within the border. The Great European Empire situated out of France, Spain, Germany and Italy had begun to conquer lands in North Africa. Hell, the United States had been committing atrocities across the board ever since 9/11. With people so terrified of terror, they had been given carte blanche when it came to their systematic nuking of the Middle East, while the rest of the world more or less turned a blind eye. Now they were waging a war on domestic terror, fighting the forces that had allegedly retreated to somewhere in Scandinavia.

Three world Empires, all of which had one concept in common: Battle Royale. If there was ever a destructive, viral program out there, it had to be the Battle Royale. Though he had not been one of the most idealistic students at Amberlaine High School, Danny was more than one to admit that he loathed the program and all it did to the youths of America (well, America, the GREA and GEE countries, Argentina, South Africa and India at last count). It was shit to say the very least, and he wanted to do something about it. Not having been the smartest in the world and more than willing to admit it, he had never known what to do. But Isaac had a plan, and that was why he was sitting in this shitty backyard in near-freezing temperatures discussing death.

"Something like that sometimes, yeah," Danny replied, "but life's got its points you know. You planning on ending yours?"

"Fuck no," the boy with the buzz cut responded with a smile, "I just intend to keep as self-destructive as is humanly possible before then while having what fun I can, unless you got a better idea of course."

"Well, there is always the plan I told you about," Danny added.

"Ah, are you thinking me welcoming death will make me more amenable to joining this whole suicide squad plan of yours?" the boy responded with a laugh.

"No, I want to ask you to do this because I know you know that I'm right on this one," Danny said, "we as young people have been fucked over, used and abused for so long, and it's about time that we did some of the abusing ourselves. We got an opportunity to deal out some major league punishment, get some attention, make some waves, and don't tell me you don't want to have a part in this."

The boy with the buzz cut went quiet for the moment. That was what always made him a conundrum to Danny; he liked to be a badass and hurt people, yet at the same time he was likely one of the smarter kids in school. Ultimately, he let out with a wide smile and tapped his fingers together methodically.

"If you can wrangle together maybe a thousand bucks, I think I can wrangle together a dozen guns, maybe more," the boy responded, "but if I do this you have to be serious that this is going to go through. I will get some heavy duty firepower, but I have to know that this is going to be big, that this is going to be bloody, and that this is going to be serious. I will only do this if we are going to get the chance to kill some cops."

"That is one of the few things I can guarantee my friend, and we can get the money no sweat," Danny replied.

"You get me the money, I get you the guns," the boy with the buzz cut shot back.

"And I will bring you the blood," Danny said with a wide smile.

"Amen to that my friend," the boy with the buzz cut said as he reached beneath his chair. Deftly pulling two beers from their six pack holders, he handed one to Danny and kept one for himself. The two boys opened them simultaneously with twin blasts of foam and alcohol, bringing them into the air in a casual toast.

"Viva la revolución," the boy replied.

"Back at you my friend," Danny responded as he let the conversation dwindle down into silence. Like that, the two boys drank their beers and smoked their smokes, never once dreaming how far their revolution would take them...

* * *

Iago Cilek, a.k.a. Boy # 21, could only marvel at how long ago that day felt. It had been maybe, what, a week, ten days (_depends on how long you were knocked out_), and already it felt nearly a year ago. The revolution had taken them far all right, but not in the direction that they had wanted. It should have killed them then and there, but instead it put them in a position where they would be forced to kill each other. Iago could only chuckle softly at the irony of it all. If the universe had a sense of humor, it was most certainly in play in this game. _Then again, you were cursed to die young anyway, the universe is now forcing you to do something with that, isn't it?_

Yes, that part had been on his mind rather intensely since the game began. Iago was many things, but spiritual had never been one of them. Pragmatic, philosophical and cynical yes, but never spiritual. Never until the Battle Royale.

Tall, pale and bony with the persistent ill-maintained shave and buzz cut, he would have normally looked painfully normal, albeit with a pair of hands and a head that looked slightly too large for their frame. He hung out mostly with the schools criminal element because they were more interesting than most of the other people he knew, and prided himself as the guy who knew how to get things. With a fascination for blades of all sorts, he always carried with him two butterfly knives dubbed Marcy and Darcy, the only things with a female name that he had had anything resembling a lasting relationship with. He had known full well that he would amount to very little from a very early age, and as such had never aspired to anything.

Which was why in its own way the brain tumor didn't really seem to be all that big a blow. It should have been the worst thing ever to happen in his life, a guaranteed death sentence that would ruin a human being of great intelligence and potential, but as he viewed it, it was part of how things just happened to go. It sucked, yeah, but it kept him from being a drain on the world, it took one unnecessary mouth away and gave room with any luck for someone who would ultimately be of some use. Sure, in his last few months and days he would be able to sow a little chaos out and about, but it would just be to make things fun while they lasted.

But the revolution and the Battle Royale really seemed to change things. Things seemed less like random "that's just how they go" and oddly enough more like fate. The revolution could be seen coming, being in a school with a guy like Isaac it would be hard not to, but their entry into the Battle Royale, that had been an interesting wrinkle into things that Iago could not have foreseen. _You should have, but you didn't, that means something, doesn't it?_ He was thrust into a game where people would be forced into mortal combat with one another, people forced to kill people, people forced to commit atrocity and anarchy to survive. But the thing was they would be people running scared, people who didn't know how to deal with death, people who weren't ready to part with their bodies.

But Iago was ready, and that part puzzled him. While all of these people were treating death as if it were the scariest thing in the world, Iago had made his peace with the concept for nearly a month. There was a tumor, a growth of irregular cells that acted as basically a living bomb, growing in his brain, feasting upon the very fabric of existence that made Iago who he was. He knew he was going to die, and it didn't scare him in the slightest. _But you're here now, you're here in a situation where you could either end things quickly, make sure you die, or you could fight. You could fight, and you could kill, but wouldn't that only encourage a system that is already flawed and horrible? What a curious situation, isn't it?_

And he was chosen. That part he could not ignore. Of all the students, of all the rabble-rousers and plants that the school had, he was one of the ones they chose as one of their best. They had to have his psych files, they had to have his medical files, so they clearly knew what kind of a person they were getting, and all the same he found himself intrigued. _Who knows why you're here, but there's no denying that you are something special in a game like this. They chose someone who knew they were going to die, someone who doesn't fear dying and doesn't fear killing. But do they want you to be a killing machine, or a martyr for some greater purpose? They left you your knives, but gave you a sword, the sword of a samurai, they know what they want you to do, but will you do it?_

"Now that's the big question, isn't it?" Iago muttered aloud with a chuckle.

Fate. Fate was the key. He was fated for something, but what he did not know. He would be on the lookout for any sign, any semblance of purpose, anything that would rationalize the game.

But until then, he wandered. Choosing to get his bearings early on, Iago had hidden out in one of the more suburban looking houses that Grover's Mill had to offer. Seeing that staying put was a stupid idea, the boy got mobile. He would dodge from street to street, looking around to make sure the coast was clear before moving on. But after four hours this strategy got tiring, and a respite was beginning to sound like a good idea.

And that was when he saw The Canterbury Theatre.

A building that brought a smile to Iago's worn and far too old-looking lips, The Canterbury Theatre was a movie theater that harkened back to the heyday of cinema in the 1930's. It's sign and marquee covered with glitz, glamour and plenty of neon, the clear intent behind the structure was to be a classy movie house of some sorts. The words on the marquee advertised:

THREE DAY GRINDHOUSE MARATHON

SLEAZE, SEX & SLAUGHTER

A GIFT FOR OUR BR COMPETITORS

GROVERS MILL WELCOMES YOU!

_Now this I gotta see._

Bounding over to the box office like a kid in a candy store, Iago could only marvel at the aged yet genuine posters that marked the glass display cases before the doors. Some of the sleaziest looking posters that the 1970's had to offer looked down upon the boy, filling him with immense glee. _Cheerleaders in Trouble _and _Fishnet Therapist_ seemed to offer titillation to the greatest degree (though the fat guy with a chainsaw in the _Cheerleaders_ poster promised a fair amount of trouble indeed). _Cong of the Dead _and _Hoedown in Hillbilly Hell_ promised a great amount of grue and enough tasteless ethnic stereotyping to offend even the ignorant. The slasher classic _Thanksgiving_ was the only film that he could have boasted as seeing (but was glad to see it here all the same), but these all paled in comparison to the motherload:

_Welcome to Die!_

The poster was simple red text on a black background, but the film spoke for itself. It was supposed to be one of the most grotesque, offensive and bloody horror movies ever made that had been banned in more countries than almost any other. The poster boasted that it had been called "tasteless" and "puerile" by a panel of hillbilly's.

"Well, there's worse ways one can spend their last few days than partaking in some of this countries cultural delights, right?" Iago said to himself with only the slightest sense of glee.

The boy entertained himself for a few moments more with taking in as many of the details of the posters as he could. During all of this, he was completely unaware that another contestant was preparing to shoot him in the back.

* * *

Paxton Algers, a.k.a. Boy # 22, had had a lousy first few hours in the 8th Annual United States Battle Royale. It wasn't just the consideration that he had been forced into a game of death (although that had certainly been a major aspect of it), but rather the fact that he had been cursed with rather poor luck. The firearm he had been assigned was an M1 Garand, about the most idiot-proof of rifles to be found in the Americas, the gun that more or less single-handedly had won WWII, and yet all the same proved to be something of an incompetent with it. It wasn't like the video games where it was all simply a matter of point and shoot. No, here it was point, keep pointing, try to shoot and hope something hits home. He had followed the guide book perfectly, and still had absolutely no luck in shooting a target. Hell, the first time he used it was simply by accident. He had just figured out how to load it by the refreshment area in the Grover's Mill Stop & Bowl when an errant tug at the trigger blew a hole in a Coke machine that had last seen repair sometime in the early 1980s.

And then there was Stacey. Stacey Fucking Golden, a.k.a. Girl # 4. She had been the first person he had seen upon getting off the bus, and she had been the first person he had tried to kill. Fuck, she wasn't even armed, not really at least. She had a curvy looking sword that looked more or less useless in the girls hands. She should have been easy to kill, but he fucked it up. The gun bucked hard and wild in his untrained hands, and he missed her. At close range even he missed her. Then some guy runs up, there's a whole lot more shooting, and all of a sudden his backpack is exploding and his stomach is on fire. Paxton felt lucky to have escaped with his life, though the gaping hole (well, in his mind at least; any doctor would have called it a flesh wound at best) in his side was cause for some concern. The bleeding had stopped, but there was still a fucking hole in his stomach.

That sucked.

Oddly enough he had found all this more frustrating than anything else. Having been used to a life where everything had been easy, the Battle Royale came as something of a shock to the system. Paxton had always considered himself to be a lover, not a fighter. Strikingly handsome, the boy had always sought to keep himself as well groomed as humanly possible, often to the extent that he would wear more makeup than the girls he dated. His shoulder-length blonde hair was always slicked back and healthy through a cabinet full of products. Born to a rich family, he was always used to the best, and though he wasn't the brightest of students his prowess on the soccer field and general reputation always seemed to get him by.

So it seemed natural to him that a feeling of betrayal was what should be felt upon entering the Battle Royale. He like most others had always viewed it as their patriotic duty to support the game and all other government programs, but this... this shouldn't have happened. Paxton was good, he was a supporter of the country. He had money. People with money didn't get fucked over by the government, hell, they were supposed to be the ones raised up by it!

And instead of being raised up by it, Paxton was wandering through the streets of a fucking frozen abandoned town hoping beyond hope that the cold tingling sensation in his side was perfectly normal and that there would be some easy target out there that he could take advantage of. _Then again, Stacey looked like an easy target too, didn't she? Fucking hippie chick could have been a bit wider and taken a bullet a bit better, then I wouldn't be in this fucked up situation._

But he had to play the game, that was the only way about it. After all, if you don't fight, you die. If you don't support the program, you don't support the country, and that's just terrible. Even if the country may turn its back on you, you could always win them back by winning it all, and Paxton had every intention of winning. It was just a matter of surviving, and hunting...

Much like his discovery of Stacey, Paxton found the distracted boy in front of The Canterbury Theatre through pure dumb luck. _Be careful this time, make sure you're at an impossible to miss range, get him square in the back, then put the gun against his head and make it a bigass red smear all over the box office there, should be easy as that, right? I don't care who it is, I don't care what they've got, I just want them and I want them dead._

With as much stealth as he could muster (which admittedly wasn't much), Paxton Algers snuck up behind Iago Cilek with every intent of murdering him.

* * *

In the mere minutes since he had attacked Stacey and Conrad, Paxton's aim improved little. Thoroughly intending to put a bullet in Iago's back, the soccer player instead fired a round into the pictured bosom of a cheerleader who may or may not have been in trouble. Though surprised, Iago quickly responded to the action by dodging to the right. _Go to the street? No, he's got a gun, not a good shot but you'll still be in the open; keep this close range, keep it dirty, you might be able to even things out a bit._

As Paxton fired off two more shots (neither hitting anything but wall), Iago stormed into The Canterbury Theatre and was met by an interesting smell: butter. Hot buttered popcorn to be precise. The concession stand apparently had been fully stocked for the game. Bright neon rimmed the candy display case, while a cardboard cutout of Benny the Bunny advertised a deal where you could buy a medium soda and medium popcorn for only 2.49 (_quite a steal_). With the main lobby lights on, Iago took only the briefest of moments to admire the plush blue and gold striped carpeting and the ornate paintings of medieval horsemen on the wall. _Wow, they really don't make places like this anymore, do they?_

His moments admiration was destroyed as the theatre's swinging doors were kicked in behind him. Another rifle shot went high, gouging a hole in the wall just next to the Coke machine and causing Iago to dodge to the side. The smaller, wirier boy ducked to the ground in a defensive position, smiling as he held his sword pointed at Paxton. He looked curiously up at the man who was trying to murder him, idly wondering if he would be able to hit him even at this range. Paxton indeed did try to take another shot at the squatting boy, only managing to blast a hole in the carpet.

"You're not a very good shot, are you?" Iago asked calmly.

"Fuck you," Paxton spat back as he rushed the other boy with his rifle held high.

Ideally Iago would have used this chance to cut Paxton's feet off with his sword, but this did not go entirely to plan. Not taking into consideration the fact that Paxton was a talented athlete and member of the school soccer team, Iago swept his sword at the other boys ankles as he ran a second too soon. Paxton saw this attack and moved accordingly, jumping just as the blade would have hacked its way through his feet and effectively drop-kicking Iago.

The smaller boy went sprawling, stunned and disoriented by the attack. Having been no stranger to fights, Iago felt little surprise in the move, yet still a fair amount of alarm as he lay on his back. _Well that certainly puts a monkey wrench in things, doesn't it?_ Angrily, Paxton stood above Iago and placed the barrel of his rifle against the smaller boys head.

"Try dodging this asshat!" Paxton said as he prepared to pull the trigger. Taking full advantage of Paxton's attempt at wit, Iago firmly kicked the him in the balls. Though Paxton moved, he still fired a reflexive shot. The thundering boom of the rifle shook Iago to the bones as what felt to be a jet of fire ran across his left cheek. Instead it was just the bullet lodging itself in the ground near his head, the heat of escaping gunpowder charring his cheek slightly. He forced himself to his feet, dimly aware that he was probably now deaf in his left ear and that if he survived this he would probably be sporting a really cool scar. _If._

Though howling and cradling his testicles (_and sporting a large amount of blood on him I might add_), Paxton still had the motivation about him to aim his rifle. _All right, at this range you can't miss, see him dodge now, yeah fucker, just try and dodge this._

To this even Iago seemed to agree, as instead of tempting fate he ran for the nearest door he could find and into the theatre proper.

* * *

In contrast to the well-maintained and meticulously maintained theatre lobby, the screening room reminded Iago more of the cinemas that he was used to. The carpet had been worn down a bit, the seats looked too hard, the ground had a slight stickiness to it. A slightly stale odor filled the air. The slightly grimy air almost seemed to fit the content onscreen. He couldn't tell which of the films was currently being showed, but it involved a nun in a pig mask rubbing an octopus on a naked teenaged girl while laughing maniacally while bad 70's funk music played in the background. _Yeah, that seems about right for a game like this. Probably not film, but still looks cool._

A crazed yell from behind caught him off guard as Paxton clumsily ran into the theater with his rifle held over his head like a mad bludgeon. Iago raised his sword to meet it, but he could do nothing to stop the heavier weapon's descent. The rifle struck him in the shoulder hard and knocked him back. Achingly, Iago stumbled backward down the aisle as he awaited Paxton's next assault. Paxton swung again, catching Iago in the hand and sending his sword flying. Iago continued down the aisle, both impressed and slightly frightened at Paxton's impromptu fighting style. _He may not know how to fight, but he's got the brute strength. What, he's got maybe forty, fifty pounds on you?_ _Two inches? Well, in height at least. He's going to kill you soon I think. Ah well._

As Paxton continued down the aisle, he rotated his rifle so that he could try to shoot Iago again. Instead of firing from the hip, he shouldered the weapon and actually attempted looking through its sight. There would be no missing this time, Iago was fully aware of that. Calm and surprisingly resigned to the situation, the wiry criminal simply put his hands into his pockets. On the movie screen behind him, the nun in the pig mask began to dance with a blood-spattered lumberjack.

Had Paxton been more confident in his shooting, he almost certainly would have killed Iago in front of The Canterbury Theatre's one screen. Instead, following caution and actually wanting to have a shot that counted, he moved in closer to Iago. He completely ignored the foot that had thrust itself out from the theatres seats, tripping over it and falling flat on his face. The M1 Garand in his hand flew from his hands and landed among the seats.

Smiling as if it were Christmas morning, Iago pulled the knives he dubbed Marcy and Darcy from his pants. In a practiced motion, he flipped the folding butterfly knives around until their blades showed themselves, gleaming in the reflective glow of the projector. The trip had only knocked Paxton to the floor momentarily, but it was all that Iago needed.

As Paxton got to his feet he immediately felt a blast of fire erupting from his left thigh. Looking down, the boy could see the handle of a knife sticking from his leg, a steady flow of blood already beginning to seep out of it. He barely had time to howl before Iago quickly cocked his other hand. He could vaguely see what appeared to be a gleaming metal tube flying through the air before fire and the handle of a knife seemingly erupted from his right thigh. _He's throwing knives?_

Collapsing to his knees, Paxton howled in pain. Desperately he tried to claw at the knives sticking out of his thighs, but the pain was too extreme. He pulled, more fire erupted, and the blood flowed freely. Looking up at his attacker, Paxton only had the briefest glimpse of Iago charging him with his sword held like a baseball bat before all went black and his head went rolling down the aisle.

Drenched in Paxton's still-spurting blood, Iago calmly resheathed his sword and retrieved his two knives. Holding one in each hand, he became vaguely aware of the sound of clapping. Sitting in the aisle seat not but two rows behind Paxton's headless corpse was a figure dressed almost entirely in black. Their cold-weather clothing seemed to be more of a hodgepodge of whatever fit them best and was most comfortable in comparison to the regulation white arctic gear they had all been provided. A dark red scarf was wrapped around their mouth, while the heavy black hood of their parka obscured the rest of the shape of their head. Reflective tinged glacier glasses hid their eyes, but even Iago was fully aware that he was being studied.

"So you saved me?" Iago asked above the movie in the background. The darkened figure in the chair only nodded.

"Why?" he replied.

The figure spoke with a surprisingly feminine voice that had an odd gravel to it, "Because it makes for a better show."

"So would that make you Grendel, Scylla, or something else?" Iago asked curiously as he raised his two knives defensively.

"Mostly the second one, a little bit of the third," the figure responded as she pointed a heavy pistol at Iago. He had no doubt that if the girl in black wanted to, she would kill him where he stood. She would not miss. Could not miss. _What was it the video said,_ _they really want to do some killing? No one would hire ineffectual ringers_

He stood there for a very long time, listening only to his heart and the sound of maniacal laughter and a chainsaw in the movie behind him. Scylla did not respond, did not move. Iago was being studied, being scanned. Part of him even began to wonder if the monster in the chair was a robot. Certainly under the circumstances it would not have surprised him.

"You'll want to stick around for the next show," Scylla said as she lowered her gun, "this one is pretty lame, but the next one is pretty intense. And it has one hell of a twist ending. If you wanna sit by me, I promise we're going to have one helluva show."

"What's the next feature?" Iago asked. He knew he should have been surprised with how easily the words came from his mouth, but under the circumstances it came out rather naturally. _Meh, when in Rome, right?_

"_Welcome to Die!_ It's pretty badass," Scylla responded smoothly.

A grin slowly crossed Iago's face. As far as he was concerned, things were definitely beginning to look up.


	12. Behind The Scenes: Hour 4

* * *

**Behind the Scenes:**

**Hour 4**

* * *

"Now that is how you kill a motherfucker!" Technician Berryman shouted enthusiastically as Iago decapitated Paxton on the big screen. A great cheer went through the twelve civilian and eight military technicians on duty in the grand computer hub they all called The Pit. Manning dozens of computers, it was up to this brain trust to maintain valuable internal systems, monitor external communication and manufacture what would be the broadcast to the outside world.

"Knock it off gents, I want COM-SET 11-3 to zoom in on that head, see if we can get a close up of it rolling down the aisle," a calm voice with a British accent said from behind the computers.

The room settled down instantly, knowing full well that this authority was one to bow to. Technician Dinh, a wiry young Vietnamese man with long, greasy hair, quickly switched to COM-SET 11-3 and zoomed in with a provided knob. Using a joystick rather skillfully, Dinh moved the camera in The Canterbury Theatre deftly enough to catch Paxton's head as it continued to roll down the aisle.

"Switching to night vision now boss," Technician Dinh said simply. His screen flashed a bright green as the camera filter switched over, yet with adjustment it garnered a superior view of the dead boy's head. Paxton's mouth lolled widely open, looking mildly surprised as it settled on its left side.

"Good call Dinh, very well done," the British man said from his comfortably cushy chair behind the men. Taking a sip from his cup of tea, he grimaced slightly. _Too hot, needs more milk. Ah well, can't expect everything from such facilities as these, can you now?_

Though complain about the amenities as he might, Sir Banastare Tarleton still found himself more than pleased. Things were going well, and Paxton's death seemed just the beginning. Tarleton always considered himself a man with an eye for talent and, well, Paxton didn't have _it._ He may have been good looking, and that was always something good to have and add to the ratings, but that was about all he offered to the game really. Within the context of the Battle Royale, he was more or less an embarrassment of a player who was chosen more for his looks and entitled attitude than any hope that he might actually have been a winner. On paper Tarleton would never admit that he had a problem with this because as a television producer he had to know what the people wanted, but he personally hated it. The contestants made the game, not how they looked. Hell, some of the greatest players in the game's history had looked positively godawful. Damien? Cletus? Clarice? Geniuses they all were. Even Grendel and Scylla looked rather unsightly, and they would certainly bring a lot to this game.

But he hadn't been hired to commentate, he had been hired to make this game the best damn game show in the world, and in his humble opinion he had succeeded rather mightily. A native of England (and proudly boasting to have been named after a Revolutionary War hero), Tarleton did not look like the average television producer. He was tall and muscular with a deep tan, wearing a work shirt with its sleeves usually rolled up and often a cowboy hat whenever he went outside. For a man in his mid-40's he was rather pleasant looking with piercing, some would say frightening eyes (and if you ever told him they were scary he would simply laugh and tell you that they weren't). _But then again you didn't get this job just because you look rugged now did you?_

Tarleton had always considered himself the best thing to happen to the American Battle Royale Program, because before him things had been rather poor. It was true that the program had been successful, even popular, but it was hardly professional. They lacked flash, they lacked style, hell, they lacked competent camera technicians and personnel. Good old Jack Thornton may have been a great administrator, but he had always been a politician with little interest in making the game as entertaining as it could be. But Kinsey, he had always been a good man as far as Tarleton was concerned. He knew that entertainment was important, and he knew that Tarleton was the man to go to in that regard.

"Should we try and listen in on their conversation?" Technician Raimi asked.

"Can't do, ambient audio in the movie house is too high," Technician Dinh said through the pop of his bubble gum.

"Well let's turn the movie down then, easy as that," Raimi said emphatically.

"No, that would be a bad idea," Tarleton said simply as he took another sip of the awful tea, "Scylla has it in her contract that we at least offer a fair selection of cinematic... classics for her perusal during the game and specified that she liked them loud. She will not play as agreed if we do anything about it, and lamentably we must abide by that contract."

To this Tarleton could only sigh. He knew that he should be used to it by now, but the demands of prima donna stars always found a way to grate on him. A reality television pioneer and one of the greatest television producers alive (in both his own eyes and probably in reality), Tarleton had had more than enough experience with people who really had no right being stars and their demands. But it was all a part of the show, and that was what really mattered. Though they may not have had classical training, both Grendel and Scylla like many before knew how to entertain.

It could be worse though. For a while he was the token angry British judge on _America's Next One Hit Wonder_, easily the most hellish experience of his life as far as he could recall. _Bunazca Barbie_ though, that one was his pride and joy. That one won him the Battle Royale gig. The premise was simple: take ten of the most savage and frightening looking girls out of the Bunazca prison camp, give them a makeover and hold a beauty competition. Then have the top two fight for the crown. It had been a surprise hit, Tarleton had become a household name, and it had landed him the BR job. But he had ambitions, it would not end with Battle Royale, oh no. There were plenty more foreign reality and game shows that could easily be stolen and adapted into proper American programming. His current favorite was a Dutch program with the ungainly name of _Lopend Heel Lang en Ver_. It had a simple enough premise, though they could change up the rules and give the game a bit more kick. The Americans, they did love their kick after all. _The Long Walk would be a good title for a game like that, right? Pretty simple, but the simplicity is what will sell it as a viable program. It'll sell, they'll eat it up, and you will be a king among men, will you not? Too bad President Thornton can't give you another knighthood, but there is probably another award you are worthy of at the very least._

...but the catering could still be better.

"I am going to see if I can find some decent tea," Tarleton said simply as he got out of his plush chair, "I must treat my voice properly before morning announcement. Berryman, I trust this place will not collapse while I am away?"

"No problem boss," Berryman said as he ran a hand through his graying stubble, "I'll keep up the ship while you're out, no sweat."

"Good," Tarleton replied as he left the room. Berryman was a good technician, brilliant computer man. He was one of the few that could be trusted to keep things from getting screwed up despite the fact that he was an utter fool.

"Looks like another good game I would say," Tarleton muttered to himself as he desperately tried to remember where the cafeteria was.

* * *

Technician Harold Berryman was glad to be rid of Tarleton. True, the older man knew his stuff, but he hadn't been there since the beginning. _He_ didn't know what it was like when the Battle Royale program started, the ins and the outs of things. He thought he knew the shit, but Berryman knew _the shit._ Berryman had been one of the main computer technicians for the game since the very beginning. Chiefly charged with being the last line of defense against any wannabe hackers and revolutionaries out there, he was the only one of the computer staff in the 8th Annual United States Battle Royale who could boast about having been around since the first. He'd lived for the game. He'd fought for the game. Hell, he had friends who had bled and died for the game. _Kamiya went in, came out missing the top half of his head. Hennessy got gutted for his trouble. Good men they were. Patriots. Helluva game that one was._

"Is he gone?" Technician Raimi asked, his buggy eyes whirling around to the door at the rear of the room.

"Wait another minute to be safe, if he's looking for a good drink he's going to be gone for a while," Berryman said as he held the men back. There was tradition to be had, but he wanted to wait for the moment to be right. _Tarleton, he better not ruin this, this is going to be one hell of a moment and he better not fuck it up._

"All right, we're clear," Berryman said as he kicked back from his seat and pulled the cooler out from under the computer array in front of them. While the opening toast was not strictly against the rules, Tarleton always had seemed to be a bit of a wet blanket about it. _Probably some British thing, never drinking on the job or some shit like that. Ah well, he's a limey, what does he know?_

Reaching into the cooler, Berryman began to distribute bottles of beer to the twenty man crew of technicians. It would be one of the only times in the game when all twenty would be on the task, so they had to take the chance while they did. Twenty bottles to twenty men. The techs had always done an opening toast, an opening honoring to the game to make sure things went well. Ever the superstitious man, Berryman knew it was always good to keep with tradition.

"All right all right, let's get down to this before we open 'em up," Berryman said enthusiastically as he held his bottle high. The men, civilian and military alike all looked to him with an admiring eye. Perhaps it was because he was the oldest (_I'm 35, Christ they just keep hiring more kids_), perhaps it was because he sounded like he knew what he was saying, but he had their rapt attention. He didn't care, he just wanted to toast.

"I just want to say that I've been doing this for seven years now, and never before have I done it with as great and talented group of people as I have before me today," Berryman said with a slightly pompous air.

"Hear hear!" Technician Kaplan shouted enthusiastically as he raised his bottle.

"Thanks Kap. Anyhow, I just want to say that there is a distinct chance that this game could easily be the best this great country has ever produced. We have a good cast, we have already seen some excellent blood-letting, and our stars have promised nothing short of the greatest game we have ever seen. If we keep at it, and I mean really keep at it, make sure that this goes off without a hitch... this one will be one for the books. I know we've had problems before-"

"Like getting outwitted by a sixteen year old?" Dinh fired back sarcastically. The Doug Rodgers Affair as it came to be known was a dark day for those who had been on duty at the time and a point of humor for the newer technicians.

"...something like that," Berryman said with a grimace, "but that one was not on my watch, Donovan was on deck at the time and got hanged properly for it. And that's beside the point, come on, let's drink up and get back to our consoles before something actually does happen. Those bastards up in broadcasting are going to be on our case any second now probably if we don't do anything soon."

This one got a lot of laughs from the men, but more grateful responses as the men began to drink up. Berryman too was all too glad to open his bottle and drink up. It would have been nice to do this game with a little bit more than just a one-beer-buzz, but it would have to do. The game was complicated, so many things that could go wrong if they're not paid attention to (and he was the one who had to do the most attention-paying), but the good cheer was good. They had a good crew for the most part. Sure, the military technicians were a bit on the stiff side, but the civvies, they were all cool. They had a bit of a fraternity going on that Berryman liked to call The Dirty Dozen. They'd drink together, party together, hit up the strip clubs, hold each others hair when vomiting. The technicians had always had fun, and always would if Berryman had anything to say about it.

Going back to his console, Berryman polished off his beer in three quick chugs and burped mightily. Scrolling idly through cameras, watching contestants hide, scavenge and hunt alike, Berryman could only smile. It was going to be a good game indeed...

* * *

"How the hell are we supposed to see anybody in weather like this?" Sgt. Barry Charon griped loudly as he reentered the snipers tower and sighed with the warmth.

"Don't ask me man, all I know best is desert and shooting people," Pvt. Stephen Dietrich said with a shrug as he looked to the towers one computer monitor. Allegedly it gave a readout of motion sensors that went out about a mile from the complex in their direction and should have allowed for some level of warning if anyone got out or tried to come in, they did get confused rather easily by both snow and wildlife alike. At around two-thirty they had seen a fierce series of blips on the computer that turned out to be nothing more than a few deer when looking through their scopes.

"What are you doing out there anyway?" Dietrich asked.

"Pissin'," Charon said simply to the amusement of Dietrich and the consternation of young Pvt. Roger Toynbee.

"That side of it means you were pissing into the wind you know," Dietrich replied with half a laugh.

"Yeah, and?" Charon said, his overbite more pronounced than ever as he jutted his neck out.

"Well, you know what they say about pissing into the wind, don't you?" Dietrich replied.

"No, what do they say about pissing into the wind?" Charon asked. Both Dietrich and Toynbee laughed at first half-heartedly, thinking that the sergeant was joking. However, Charon's eyes were deathly serious: he actually wanted an answer to the question. This had the makings of something very bad (_or at least annoying_), and Toynbee wanted nothing to do with anything that would get bad. Especially around Charon.

"Hey guys, I think I'll do a check on the snowmobile, make sure everything's operating A-OK, all right?" Toynbee said rather timidly.

"Yeah, go on," Charon waved dismissively.

"This could take a while," Dietrich added, "might want to make sure the two of us can get in a quick retreat, right?"

"Right," Toynbee added with the faintest hint of a smile. Opening the door that led to the tower's internal staircase, Toynbee descended to the ground floor slowly with only his thoughts for company. Charon and Dietrich were good for a laugh, but more often than not... they were just too much for the man.

Man. He had to laugh at that thought. He was nineteen, barely, and wasn't even old enough to buy a beer. Wasn't old enough to buy a beer, but old enough to sit in a tower watching people try to kill each other. How's that for irony? _Then again, they're even younger than you, not by much, but we force them to kill. Where's the justice in things man?_

Pvt. Roger Toynbee never intended to be a part of the people behind the Battle Royale Program. Hell, if anyone he knew were to ask him nicely enough he would've probably said he hated it with a passion. There was just something so inherently wrong about the concept of friends being forced to kill friends... it made him sick. It made him sick, but it had also become a part of his life that he could not avoid. _Nothing'll make a man out of you like the good old U S OF A Army he'd say. You don't join the army and you'll probably be a little faggot like that North boy down the street. You wanna be a man don'tcha? Hell, I lost my leg in the Gulf, your grandpappy his eye in 'nam, that'll make a man out of you. Fuck college, sign up boy!_

Finally reaching the snowmobile, Toynbee shuddered. His father's words echoed within him deeply. He tried to shake them off as much as he could, but they would never go. Good old dad, as great a flag waver as any (_well, you are a patriot too, aren't you?_), Toynbee would have easily admitted that he had joined the Army as much to appease his father as to get away from him. And really, it hadn't been all that bad. Before he had lacked direction, lacked focus, and the army really did drill that in rather nicely. He had learned to be a pretty decent vehicle mechanic and an excellent sniper, so with any luck (and the promise that the military would pay for college afterward), it wouldn't be all that hard to parlay everything into a career afterwards. Find a decent job, get out of that shitburg in Iowa with dad and all his redneck buddies, it would be easy.

For Toynbee, unfortunately, the Battle Royale had been something of a means to an end. He was a good shot, an excellent shot at that, and so he had been reassigned. No longer in a base outside of Reykjavik preparing helicopters before they were to be placed on an aircraft carrier headed for the North Sea, he was now supposed to sit his ass in a tower for three days watching to see if anyone would escape from a Battle Royale and make a run for their lives. If there was anything worse than taking part in a war on Scandinavia, that was easily it.

Keeping up the pretense he had given himself, the soldier did a quick once-over of the snowmobile. It was fine, it had been the day before when he looked it over, it would be fine in the end. _Nothing but the best for this crew, nothing but the best for our government. Under our great leader. Nothing but the best for the kids in the game. We treat them like kings only so they can tear each other apart. Is there justice in that, really?_

He could survive sitting in the tower, much as he might not have wanted to. The only problem he had was that he was beginning to think that if he had to, he probably wouldn't have shot one of the kids if they tried to escape. Only a year apart. _A year!_ Only one year prior he could have been one of them, and it scared something in him, something deep and primal. _We are all just like them. We could've been them, but instead we are preying upon them. We are patriots preying on our own kind because we want to make a good buck and keep the people entertained. We're only a step away from gladiators and sending lions out to off Christians, boy what a time we live in._

"Hell, if they make it past the Briar Patch, they deserve to make it out," Toynbee said with the slightest of laughs to himself.

What would happen if he couldn't shoot? That thought plagued him to no end. He'd be told to, Charon would yell at him, call him out on dereliction of duties perhaps and maybe just shoot him on the spot. Dietrich would stand back flabbergasted of course, but it would be perfectly legal all the same. Ignore your duties and get shot. _But if it comes to that, I think I'll be doing the shooting first. If things get real bad... the world would probably be better off without a guy like Charon in it after all, wouldn't it?_

* * *

While Tarleton sought tea, Berryman kicked back in his chair and Toynbee debated the consequences of shooting Charon in the face, an intelligent looking man of direct African descent nearly 400 miles away from Grover's Mill rolled up to his computer desk. Though muscular and bearing every appearance of a gym rat, he kept close to the pile of donuts and energy drink cans that would have to keep him going for the next few days. Logging on with a yawn (_why does it have to be this early? The Owl wants it, that's why_), the man who was called by those who knew him best "The Cuckoo" established an internet connection. The next few days would be hard, the work arduous, but he was one of the best and knew his job like no other.

Then again, whoever said hijacking the Battle Royale mainframe would be easy?


	13. Hour 5: 48 Contestants Remaining

* * *

**Hour 5**

**48 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

Things had not been going so well for Nick King, a.k.a. Boy # 9, but as the game rolled into its fifth hour he did hold the distinct belief that things were looking up. At least they couldn't have gotten any worse, right? He still took pride in taking the game's first blood. The first to kill was generally a pretty popular player from the get go as they knew your intentions (_except for that pussy wannabe rebel in the California season_), and the fans would know that you were in it to win it. And that bit of things had gone well. Zora's murder while not the easiest in the world to pull off was also certainly not the most difficult. It was the psyching himself up part that was the hardest, but he knew it would be. _Killing people looks easy on paper, but it can't be as easy as it looks on TV. Not if you've got any semblance of emotion in you. But once you get over that hump, things are going to get easy, right?_

With that kill out of the way and the next part of the game in motion, Nick fell back on the plan that he had been formulating in his head for the longest time. Hell, it was the plan the boy had been dreaming up for the longest time. Being a Battle Royale nerd as it was, he had been studying past seasons and dreaming up plans and strategies in the off hope that he could someday get the chance to play the game. As of his entry into the game, Nick considered two options to be the most optimal:

1) Team up, hunt and hide. It helped if you could get one, maybe more allies armed with firearms and do a combination of defensive and offensive maneuvers to sweep through the game. Optimally he would have three of them, one bigger, one smaller, and one who he could trust implicitly only to backstab later in the game.

2) Hunt. Get a gun and stalk through the game, taking whatever chances necessary and pillaging the dead for useful and more powerful weapons. Initially find a weapon and take out all the students at the starting bunker. Ideally within this he could find a rifle of some sorts and then make it to the town's tallest building or highest point and use it as a platform to kill contestants as they wandered by on their merry way.

Unfortunately, it became readily apparent that within minutes of his entry into the game that neither of these two techniques would be all that practical. The first was essentially thrown out the window when he killed Zora, as it would be pretty hard to get allies if they all thought you were a murdering psychopath (not to mention the fact that he knew and liked very few of the people currently in the game). The second was going well initially, albeit with a few hitches. The moving bus made eliminating contestants as they came out more difficult, and when CJ Dartanian, a.k.a. Boy # 10, started firing upon him he had to abandon any hope whatsoever of following the bus.

And then there was Sophia. The name he would forever curse, Sophia Apollinar, a.k.a. Girl # 6. She should have been an easy kill. Hell, she didn't even hear him sneak up behind her, eliminating her would have been a cinch. In order to conserve ammunition for later in the game when its value would be greater than that of gold, he had attempted to stab the girl with the knife stolen from Zora's bag. But Sophia was fast. Merciless. She broke his nose. She bruised his balls. She lit him on fire. _But I survived. It was a pain in the ass, but I survived, and I didn't let it kill me. I didn't let it take me down. I ain't gonna be a Gervase._

The fire was bad, but it could have been worse. He rolled around in the snow to put the flames out before they could thoroughly burn through the parka, and though he probably made a fool of himself in the process (_yeah, that one's going on YouTube_), it did work. All he had for his trouble was some singed hair and a swath of blisters across his left arm, but things could have been worse. They could have been a hell of a lot worse.

All the same, it still hurt like hell. Coupled with the beating he had received at Sophia's hands, Nick was in a world of hurt. With priorities temporarily changed, the boy had sought medical help. _Medical clinic? No, anyone and everyone who's bound to get hurt will go there. Go to the police station, there's bound to be a first aid kit. Maybe get a new parka while you're at it, and if you've got any luck there may be a weapon..._

* * *

As a general rule when an existing American town was used as a Battle Royale site all firearms, knives and familiar bludgeon weapons would be removed so as to not remove the importance of all assigned and prize weapons. It also forced the usage of improvised weapons from whatever else could be found lying around the town, another key factor that tended to bring in the ratings.

However, with the knowledge he had from watching seven prior seasons of the game and some intense online researching, Nick King knew that a loophole existed in the game's format. To give hope to even the most desperate in real bad times, they would tend to leave one weapon behind in pretty much every building, if just to give the completely destitute (or robbed) a fighting chance should they be backed in a corner and have the gumption about them to go searching. Nick King, having been freshly beaten and robbed in the Eighth Annual Battle Royale, set out towards the towns police station with this in mind.

Upon arriving where the icon on the map indicated the police station, the boy found himself mildly surprised. In its place was the Town Hall, a non-descript concrete building painted with a plain beige paint job and a sign that boasted "Grover's Mill City Hall." He looked to the building with minor frustration. It would certainly complicate matters. _They had to give us an out of date map, didn't they? Well that's certainly a hot pickle, isn't it? Wait a second, you can work around this. This is the Battle Royale Program, they know what they're doing. You gotta look, it's gotta be here somewhere..._

Figuring inside anywhere was better than outside wearing a tattered and charred parka and with a hunch that he could still find what he was looking for, Nick King blundered through the building's heavy wooden front doors.

It was a reception room, plain and simple. A mosaic of the city's crest held a central position in the wall, overlooking a rather large wooden desk with a small bank of phones and personal photographs. Doors branched off to either side of the room with signs pointing the way. MAYOR'S OFFICE. CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS. POLICE STATION IN BASEMENT.

"Sweet."

* * *

The Grover's Mill Police Station had proved to be a boon for Nick King, and it was something he could only be grateful for. There was a fresh green parka with a shiny metal badge on it in the police chief's office, and Nick took it gratefully. For the hell of it (and thinking it looked cool), he also swiped a cowboy hat he found hanging off a coat rack. _Yeah, maybe it doesn't make you look as scary as some, but it's pretty badass looking all the same._ Finding and pillaging a first aid kit, the boy dry-swallowed three aspirin for pain, poured an entire bottle of hydrogen peroxide on his burns and wrapped them (rather painfully) in bandages. It still hurt like hell, but at the very least things were beginning to look up some for the first time in a long time.

But the weapon... the weapon was the key. He had hoped to find a firearm that had been left behind, though even he knew that this line of thinking may have been a bit too optimistic. The racks where shotguns and pistols would normally be stored were entirely empty. The drawer where he was certain they stored their handcuffs was open and cleared out as well. Though Nick was certain that this too was another aspect of the government's cleaning out of the town, it actually happened to be one of his best bits of luck in the early hours of the game. Not but twenty minutes before, Frank Luczak, a.k.a. Boy # 14, had been in and cleared out the supply of handcuffs with the slightest of smiles across his face. It was perhaps Nick's best bit of luck since everything started.

The second best bit of luck however was how he found the bat. He had scoured the police station for nearly half an hour, believing things to be entirely empty and fully looted, when out of frustration he kicked over a surprisingly well-maintained potted plant in the station's foyer. As the pot spread dirt and its well-maintained Ficus plant over the darkened station's floor, Nick could hear a distinct clattering with it. Whoever the minds behind the game were, they had hidden a good old-fashioned head-cracking wooden baseball bat inside the potted plant. It was aged and hardly in the best condition as cracks ran up one side and the handle was wrapped poorly in electrical tape, but as far as boy was concerned it was a magical weapon. It was Mjolnir. It was Hrunting. It was motherfucking Excalibur. _Not quite from a stone, but from a potted plant shall do._

The boy held the weapon up with grateful, almost worshipful eyes.

"I'm back," he said to himself with a smile.

* * *

Getting back into the world with a weapon in hand (and a cowboy hat rather jauntily placed upon his head), Nick King began to feel better. _Maybe this is how it's all supposed to be after all. You went through a humbling experience to take you down all to make your ascension to the winner's seat all the more glorious and you all the more popular. That has to be it, doesn't it?_

Walking as stealthily as he could and finally dodging into the town's nice residential area, Nick could only shake his head. It was all a matter of editing, pure and simple. Love the game though he might and believe in its greatness all he would, he knew that it still came down to those guys sitting in the editing room and what the game's producers ultimately thought of him as. Since the game was broadcast more or less live, he had to make sure that his actions at the very least looked both purposeful and cool, and then... maybe then he could win it.

_But you only have a bat. Well, people have done more with less, haven't they?_

That much gave the boy cause for smile. There had been people in the past who started with less and made it a lot further in the game. It was all a matter of how you used things and how you went about it. Though he ultimately lost, Damien (well, Charlie again if you wanted to get into semantics) in the California game had gone far after starting out with nothing more than a CD jewel case. Cora Bright Tree, the ultimate winner of the South Dakota game, had waged a guerilla war on some of the most fiercely intense and strong jocks in the game's history when she started out with nothing more than a snow globe. _They got far, they started with very little, and you can make it far. You can become a legend. Hell, you can become a fucking superstar. Then you'll get on TV shaking the president's hand and you'll be a fucking American god. How cool is that man?_

He tried to smile further at the thought, but that nagging sense of realism in the back of his mind kept prodding at him. _You killed one person, so what, does that mean you have the guts to wage a war? Yeah, you could always hang back, hang back and let the big boys deal it all out while you watch them and pick off the victors. Lucian did that and he won Florida, but then again he had a gun and they were pretty much pussies who made it to the end anyway. Anyone likely to get to the end of this one has to be big and badass and you have a bat. And everyone hates Lucian. No, to win and be loved, you gotta fight. You gotta fight and you gotta make it good. Just get another kill, any other kind of kill and maybe you'll be able to make a comeback. Maybe even get someone (like you) who isn't smart enough to want to use their gun._..

But that was silly. Naïve even. No one would be stupid enough to do that, it wasn't good game play. He didn't use his gun because saving ammunition was good game play; if you can avoid to do it, that was the best. _Yeah, tell yourself that, you did get lit on fire after all._ To expect everyone not to be playing their best and going all out with it at that, that was stupid. _But not everyone here watches the game like you. You know it better than them. You analyze it better than them. They? They're civilians, you're a fan. They can get scared, they go to fear and don't think things through, you've at least been thinking all this out for the last seven-_

"Holy shit!" a surprisingly squeaky voice shrieked off to Nick's right.

The boy jerked over in surprise, looking around and finding that he was much deeper into the residential section than he had expected. Under his breath he cursed for having lost focus like that, but looking to the open doorway of a nearby house his grimace turned to a grin. Standing terrified-looking in the doorway holding what appeared to be a golf putter was none other than Nick McIntyre, a.k.a. Boy # 24. While King himself was fully aware that he wasn't one of the game's greatest physical threats, McIntyre was even less so. McIntyre was a small boy by most standards, a head shorter than most of the other boys in their class and probably the skinniest. Those who had seen him in the locker room could attest that his ribs easily shone through his skin, and he had an odd habit of drooling when he was deep in thought. If there was one thing that Nick McIntyre had going for him, it was that he was loud. A proud anarchist, he was constantly talking about how he'd like to one day burn down the White House just so he could dance in its ashes. _That's just talk though, he had things out in the world, but in here it's all evened out. You got fifty pounds on him easy, let him swing first and you could beat him mercilessly, no sweat. Wanna bet you're even faster than him?_

To top it off, McIntyre would also look like a good kill on his tally list. Zora, well, she had been an easy target, restrained, vulnerable (_by no means easy still_), and hardly one to boast about. But McIntyre, he would be different. Sure, he was smaller, but he was a criminal. A boy too. It was easy to prey on girls in the game (_minus Sophia_), but boys, well, they were the cream of the crop. _Work him over, finish him off, and you will be on your way to victory my friend._

The two boys stared at each other for a long time across the lawn, each seemingly waiting for the other to make a move. McIntyre looked on with fear in his eyes, while King did his best to look tough. His gloved hands tightened fiercely around the electrical-tape bound bat. _Come on man, it'll be easy, sure there may be some fight, but you can take him, no sweat. He's only got a putter, you can take him, come back out on top. Come on man, don't chicken out this time, not again..._

Ultimately, it was McIntyre who moved first. Spinning around on his heels, the boy wheeled back into the house. King was quick to follow, bounding across the front lawn and kicking the door in just before McIntyre was able to latch it shut. The larger boy could hear McIntyre inside the house howling as the door was pushed back, catching only a fleeting glimpse as he ran up a nearby flight of stairs.

McIntyre looked back briefly, and made what King thought to be a fatal mistake: he tripped. Falling down face-first onto the stairs, McIntyre lay sprawled out on the steps. Taking his chance, King charged the smaller boy and intended to slam his bat into McIntyre's knees. Instead, the boy with the golf club was just fast enough to dodge out of the way and scrambled back up the stairs, turning back quickly enough to prod King weakly in the shoulder with his gold club. _Kid's barely got enough strength in him to pull this off, gotta make this a mercy killing now don'tcha?_ _No, no mercy. Glory. Fame. Celebrity. If you kill him, you are one step closer my friend._

Bounding up the stairs after the wiry boy, King only felt the slightest hint of disquiet at how quickly the other boy moved. McIntyre was no weakling, that much he knew based on reputation and his dealings with the school's criminal element, but in the game nothing seemed to match up. His face was fearful, but his movements were purposeful. He was clumsy, but seemingly methodical. _Bah, you're overthinking things too much, just follow through and go in for the kill..._

At the top of the stairs, King could see McIntyre halt at the end of a long hallway. The smaller, rat-like boy held up a defensive position at the end of the hall, standing with his arms wavering as he held up the golf club weakly in front of an open closet door. Something was wrong. King knew it, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Everything about this situation screamed at his better instincts that something was off. _Why's he standing there? You should know better than this, it looks like a trap. It feels like a trap. What the hell man, what the hell? Could he set up a trap? Could he actually beat you in this? No, no one's thought this game out like you. No one's watched this game like you. You have to trust your instincts on this one and you will win. Beat him down, and you know that you can win._

With a hearty yell, King charged down the hallway. His cowboy hat flew off with the quick acceleration, and some idle part in the back of his mind reminded him to pick it up later. With his bat raised high, it would have been easy to smash in McIntyre's skull with one simple swing.

If he had stayed put of course.

Instead he simply stepped to the side and smashed the golf club into the right side of King's head. A blast of red pain shot through the boy's body as the whole world misted over for a moment, making his feet fall out from underneath him as he tumbled into the closet. Trying to regain his footing before he completely fell to the floor, the boy found himself stepping in an old-fashioned metal wash tub. Its contents quickly soaked through his boot. _Great, that's going to be comfortable later. So much for looking cool, huh? _With strength in his legs finally gone, the boy collapsed onto his back, still holding his bat feebly in case McIntyre tried to attack.

The unfairness of it all struck the boy quickly. All he had been through, all he had fought for, and it all seemed to be for nothing. Every time he tried to do something cool, something that would make him a star, it kept blowing up back in his face. He tried to follow the bus, there was CJ. He tried to stab Sophia, she lit him on fire. He tried to kill McIntyre, and he was beaten and flung into a closet. The rat-like boy was probably on the run already, getting out now that King had found his hiding hole. _It's cowardly really. At least you always had that going for you. You may not have been able to pull everything off the way you wanted to, but you must have gotten points for being proactive... and what the hell is that smell?_

As his eyes began to clear and his nose picked up the pervading odor in the closet, Nick King could only think of hide and seek. He always loved playing it over at Tommy Connolly's house as it was pretty damn big and had a lot of places to hide, but Tommy always knew all the good places and could find him easily. The only time he had been able to completely stump Tommy was when he had contorted himself into a position that allowed him to hide under the kitchen sink. There were spiders underneath there and the smell of chemicals was rich, but he had won the game. He had also gotten stuck and eventually needed to be cut out from under the sink by firefighters (which incidentally made it so he was never invited to the house again), but in those four hours stuck under the Connolly's sink Nick King had become very knowledgeable with that smell...

...the smell of ammonia.

_Who the fuck would fill a washtub with ammonia?_

As he began to regain his bearings and tried to get back to his feet, King could only just get a quick glimpse of McIntyre running his way with a clear two-liter soda bottle filled with liquid. With distinct glee, the small, rat-like boy threw the heavy bottle into King's closet and practically clapped to himself as it landed in the washtub. With lightning-quick reflexes, the boy then slammed the closet door shut. What light that might have emanated under the crack in the door was quickly shut out (his best guess would have been by a towel, some instinctual part of his mind thought). Still aching, though with his mind putting things together better, the boy began to realize that something was horribly, horribly wrong.

And then he noticed the hissing sound coming from the washtub.

* * *

At first he could hear King scream. That part was fun. He screamed and screamed for all he was worth, pounding miserably on the door as he must have been in agony. He couldn't get through of course, not with the heavy chair braced underneath the handle like it was. And if he had the formula right (and McIntyre was sure it was), then King was probably feeling some of the most deliciously intense pain possible for a human to feel. Some ammonia, some bleach, and a couple of his own experimental ingredients, and it should have been a reasonable approximation of Mustard Gas.

As the screams turned to racking, wet coughs on the other side of the door, McIntyre could only smile. _Bumpity bumpity bump._ King had to be coughing up blood by now. His skin was probably covered in big, bright red and bloody blisters that would be bursting with his every movement. Agony, pure and simple. That had to be King's life inside that closet.

And it couldn't have made McIntyre any happier.

For lack of any better word, Nick McIntyre always considered himself to be an anarchist. To an extent, this was true, as he did have an utter disdain for anything and everything related to authority. But more than that, he used it as an excuse to encourage his love for the burn. He could spout political ideologies and loudmouthed excuses all he wanted, in the end it all came down to the burn. Pyromania probably would have been an effective word for it (and if his half-uncle locked up in that institution in Terra Haute was any indication, it was possibly genetic), but that never seemed to be the right word to the boy. It just didn't seem to encompass the pure ecstasy and beauty that came from the naked flame, from the guttural belch of a gas explosion, from the scream of pain a person on fire emitted when they realized they were being taken by man's oldest fascination.

There would be time to burn in this Battle Royale, oh yes. There were oh so many houses and buildings, and if Nick McIntyre had anything to say about it they would all be burned to the ground.

The boy on the other side of the door started pounding again. Harder this time. _Probably using that crappy bat of his. Hope the door holds._

But fire he knew. There were other curiosities that had held him for the longest time that he wanted to try out as well. Much as he would have liked to have gotten his hands on a copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook, it was just too damn hard to get your hands on a copy in a day and age when terrorism was rampant. But he had heard rather graphic descriptions of how you could make Mustard Gas out of mixing ammonia and bleach, and though he knew it to be a lot more uncontrollable than fire, at the very least it sounded nasty. _Tried it out good too, seen how many strays choke and hack and bleed out when you put 'em and the gas in that refrigerator out back. They squirm and howl just like the boy in that closet th-_

With a splintering crack, the boy inside the closet cracked a large hole in the top half of the door. A startlingly white vapor began to seep out, causing McIntyre to curse. _Should've used another room, that door's too weak. Great._

Though the gas would soon be coming his way, McIntyre was sublimely curious to see how the gas had worked on people. It should be grizzly, it should be grotesque. It should be... awesome.

With another swing of the bat, King broke a greater hole in the door, this time large enough to start pushing part of himself through it. His right hand still carrying the bat came through first, followed shortly by his face. Even in the limited light and with white gas slowly seeping his way, McIntyre could see enough of the boy to make him smile.

King's face was a mess of red, bloody blisters and seemingly blackened flesh. Blood seemed to run down everything. He coughed violently, spraying a thick gout of flesh and blood along a nearby wall. A family photo received the brunt of this wrath, a chunk of Nick's lung slowly sliding down a graduation portrait.

"All right, that's enough," McIntyre said as he turned his back on the boy in the closet. He casually tossed the golf club to the side, the boy made his way down the stairs. The golf club was a lousy weapon, but it had done for the sake of making the trap look more real. Having been assigned a pistol earlier in the game, McIntyre knew that for the trap to work he would snare in someone who would want to chase him, but who also didn't have a gun that would change the playing field. So carrying the golf club he had found in the same closet he had set the trap, the boy waited for someone to walk by carrying a knife or blunt object and made his presence known. It was risky, but it was worth it.

The dying boy in the closet proved it. Poison gas would be too risky to use on a wide scale without anything resembling a gas mask, but at the very least it was a fun diversion in the early hours of the game.

Whistling the tune of some song he couldn't quite remember, Nick McIntyre left the house at 1231 Ridgemont and wandered into the game.

He was ready to burn.

* * *

With less than half of his body through the hole he had beaten in the doorway and bits of lung and blood all over the place, Nick King still fought to survive. Though his vision had gone hazy and his breathing was almost negligible, Nick King's mind remained active. Erratic for the most part, but still quite active.

More than anything he wondered where he had gone wrong. Time and again he had seen players rise and fall on the show, and time and again he had adjusted the mental strategy he would use should he ever get in the game accordingly. He did everything right, he killed when he had to, tried to conserve when he had to, chased and fought who he had to, and all the same it all backfired. It wasn't fair, it just wasn't fair. The rules, they didn't seem to apply once you were in the game. _Everyone should be playing the game right, instead they played it wrong and now I'm here._

_Maybe this isn't such a great game after all._

With that final thought, Nick King died stuck in the remains of a door. He let loose one final, bloody rasp and dropped his electrical-tape wrapped bat to the floor with a thud.

After that the house would remain quite silent until the end of the game. Then it would become a bloodbath for the ages.


	14. Hour 6: 47 Contestants Remaining

* * *

**Hour 6**

**47 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

The job of Battle Royale announcer was not a highly sought after one in the United States. Some didn't want it because it was not all that glamorous. Others chose not to because of the harsh contracts that the government would typically put in place. However, most of those offered the job chose not to take it due to the widely held belief that it was cursed. Those who announced for the game just had a tendency to either disappear, die or be completely ruined once they became associated with the game. Though not entirely the rule, as those who announced for the first two games were both perfectly alive and out of prison, starting with the third game the announcers just tended to have extraordinarily bad luck.

The announcer for the California season, local disc jockey J.J. Squalls, had simply disappeared off the face of the Earth and had never been seen since.

Standup comedian Jeff Goodspeed, announcer for the West Virginia season, had been shot in the head in an apparent carjacking gone horribly awry.

Radio personality Ronald Horning, announcer for the Maine game, had been discovered with a startling amount of illegal pornography and was serving a startlingly long jail sentence up in Shawshank (though they said he was quite popular within the system).

Pop stars Lonny and Donny Hollinger announced for the sixth season out of South Dakota, and neither had been seen alive since. Pieces of Lonny had been found inside of a stone quarry not far outside of Las Vegas, seemingly having been dragged to death. Donny was considered a prime suspect in the murder due to the friction common between the brothers. As of the taping of the Michigan game, he was still missing and considered armed and dangerous.

There was of course the theory that some anti-BR terrorist group, most likely The Raptors, but also possibly Precinct 13, The Sons & Daughters of SABRE or The Horsemen, had some involvement in these occurrences. However, a lack of evidence and the fact that none of these glory-happy groups had taken credit for the incidents didn't give the theory a lot of credence. Instead, it was simply easier for some to believe it was cursed.

The position had gained a rather poor reputation, but thankfully Banastare Tarleton was not a superstitious man. When finding an announcer had proven to be difficult for the Florida season, Tarleton himself stepped up to the task. Having experience in the media as the token angry British judge in _America's Next One Hit Wonder_, he provided a voice of familiarity and snideness that had give the Florida season perhaps some of the games greatest ratings (despite its mediocrity in some eyes.) So, when the next game had come up and he still hadn't died or been sent to prison, he readily volunteered to announce again.

So when the speakers mounted beneath the floodlights that covered the town shrieked to life on the morning of the game's first day, it was his lightly accented voice that echoed across Grover's Mill.

"Good morning Battle Royale contestants, I would personally like to welcome you all to what I believe is going to be an excellent game. You have gotten off to a better start than perhaps any other game in the show's history that I can recall, and can only encourage you to keep up the good work! You have made your country very proud! At any rate, I do not want to keep you from your competition, so here is a list of your friends in the order that they died. First to go was Girl # 9, Zora Caldwell. Those of you who were on the bus must have had an interesting show with _that_ one."

He chuckled merrily into the microphone before continuing on with his spiel.

"After that we have Girl # 17, Nicole Baldwin, Girl # 7, Misty Cruz, Boy # 22, Paxton Algers, and Boy # 9, Nick King. That leaves only one Nick for you to remember, which should make that quite a bit easier for you. Now for some simple housekeeping announcements. When conversing with your fellow contestants, please speak at an audible volume so that the viewers at home will be able to share the entire game experience with you. If you are in an area with great amounts of ambient noise, please keep all important conversations until after you leave the area so we may completely understand you. That means any and all of you in the movie theater. And I would just like to note, please do not damage any of the recording technology in the game, it only means we will have to punish you and replace what you have done."

He took a sip from a cup of tea before continuing on. The sound of a record player could be heard over the speakers as he finished off his announcement.

"Once again, welcome to the game, and thank you for some fantastic moments. Keep up the good work, and God bless America!"

At that, he cued up the record. Cheerful classical strings intoned through the speakers as Camille Saint-Saëns' _Carnival of the Animals, Finale_ played happily over the loudspeakers. The music did little to cheer up those inside.

* * *

Although the speakers broadcasting the morning announcement were all outside, they were loud enough to get the message across even to those who had found the most sturdy of fortifications. Perhaps one of the most naturally fortified rooms in the entire town was the library at the high school. A room barely larger than two classrooms put end to end, it had no windows and one easily defensible entrance. What it may have lacked in books it more than made up for in heavy wooden bookshelves. One of them placed directly across the door with many a heaving and grunting had at least given the feeling of security, but the announcement had shaken both of the rooms occupants.

"Holy shit," Glen Counihan, a.k.a. Boy # 2, said as he checked off the names on his list, "that makes five. We got five people dead. That's-"

"Trouble," Julie Hewitt, a.k.a. Girl # 19, responded with a sigh, "yeah, I know." Although she had never been that close to any of the people announced, hearing their names were still a blow. _Shit, people really are doing this._

"We gotta do something," Glen responded with wide, terror-filled eyes. An African-American boy of slim build and with an intelligent face, his eyes were usually filled with a mix of wonder and amusement. To see them fearful truly unsettled Julie to the core.

He quickly added, "We gotta do something soon. This is gonna get a whole lot worse before it gets any better and you know it! Staying here isn't going to do much-"

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking," Julie interjected. This was more or less the truth, but given the circumstances she just hoped it would keep him quiet for a few moments. Julie looked to Glen as he ran his one good hand through his hair (he'd been trying to grow a half-assed afro for some time, yet had very little success) and tried not to feel disgust. _He's just trying to deal the best way he knows how. He's not a fighter, you're not a fighter, but you're both here now and you're going to have to find a way to deal. You're always the one with a plan, and he's going to look to you to know what to do._

Julie sighed. Even in the game it wouldn't change.

She had a lot going for her, and she knew it. An African-American girl who was pretty (not as beautiful as some, though Glen would have called her striking) and driven, she had had her future planned for the longest time. _High School, University, keep up on the papers and the right courses in the meantime, and in a few years time you'll be the one choosing between LA Times and NY Times. Keep up the political writing on the downlow, and all's well, right?_

But with Glen, it was always the same. He never had a plan. He was impulsive. When he got scared, he was irrational. He never thought anything through. When it was their one-year anniversary as a couple, he had spent his entire years salary from working at Mr. Cluck's Chicken on renting a limousine and taking her out to a fancy seafood restaurant. The gesture was sweet and at the time she had not minded it too much, but in the end it pointed to the simple fact that he was never focusing on the long run. They were seniors, they had to be looking toward college and saving up. Instead he went for the grand gestures. The big, foolish moves. _Like that cast on his arm. That fucking cast..._

Glen had a tendency for heroics despite the fact that his body was not made for them. Of average frame and build, his innate clumsiness which she had once found charming often managed to hurt him more than help him. About three weeks earlier he had seen CJ Dartanian harassing some freshmen and decided to put a stop to it. When words didn't work, he physically threw himself in the way and got beaten so badly that some thought he would die. In the end, he made it out with a few stitches and a broken wrist, and CJ had been suspended for a week. It was simple, but at the same time it frustrated her. _He never thinks things through, and one of these days it's going to get him killed... Just make sure he doesn't drag you down with him._

He had that wistful look on his face again. At least it was an improvement on his terrified face. Lying down on one of the libraries three tables, he stared at the ceiling with that smile that told Julie that he was elsewhere. When they were together she had deluded herself into thinking he was thoughtful. Now he just looked like he was trying not to face the situation. _Come on, don't make this worse. You're still friends. He may not be the first person you'd think of wanting to be with out here, but he is still your friend. He sought you out looking to protect you when he was only assigned a carpet sample book and you got the gun, could it get any more sweet than that?_

"Where are you now?" Julie asked with a forced smile.

"'bout two years back," he said with mock casualness, "your parents basement after Thanksgiving, we were on that couch of yours..."

"You still had braces then, they were gross," she replied earnestly.

"Yeah, but that didn't stop me from being a good kisser now did it?" Glen responded cheekily as he sat up on the table.

"This is true," Julie replied with a smile. Thankfully she didn't have to force this one.

"Think that was easily one of the happiest nights of my life," he continued a bit wistfully, "full of food, good times and good company. We played board games and charades with your folks 'til they practically dropped, went down to the basement and made out something fierce..."

Though Julie would have preferred to turn away from the past (or at least this part of it), she didn't want to rob him of the moment. He looked happy, if a bit hurt as he grimaced and looked her in the eye.

"I guess living in the past is better than living here now ain't it?" Glen said simply as he resumed lying down and looking at the ceiling, "Only thing constant between then and now is us. Not quite the us we used to be, but us all the same, am I right?"

_Us._ Just a simple word loaded with so much meaning and so much trouble at the same time. There had once been an _us_, back when she found him charming. His humor was lightening, refreshing even in such serious times. While she focused most of her time on studies, writing and the political arena, he seemed like a breath of fresh air. He was someone who wasn't worried all the time, someone who was devoted to her, and someone who knew how to have fun. But after a while (_what, two years was it?_), all the reasons she fell for him in the first place seemed to be driving her away from him. She had motivation, a goal in life. He had none. Breaking it off had not been pleasant on either end, but as far as she was considered it was a necessary evil.

But in the game... it was amazing how easily the mind shifted once it had been removed from its comfort zone. At the very least in the game he proved to be a friendly face. One she could trust at that, which seemed good in a place where trust would soon be a tough thing to come by. She knew that he still had feelings for her, and there was something elusive still in the back of her mind that felt for him. Nothing major, but definitely something. _Not nearly what you have for-_

"We have to find Isaac," Julie said out of nowhere. Glen was clearly surprised by her bluntness.

"Why Isaac?" he asked defensively.

"Why not Isaac?" she shot back.

"I don't know if you were paying attention or not but he was leading that whole insurrection that got us here in the first place I think," Glen responded.

"Maybe, but he's also the only one in this whole damn game who can get us out," Julie said earnestly.

"You sound pretty sure of that," Glen said a bit dubiously. He didn't like Isaac very much, Julie knew that. _But what he wants doesn't matter. He's got a cast on his arm, you don't. You have the gun, he doesn't. You're the strong one here._

"Just trust me on this one, all right? Isaac's got his own things going on, but all the same he hates the system pretty much more than anyone else in here. If there was one person in this game I'd trust to get us out of this thing, it would be Isaac Freemantle," Julie responded quickly and confidently.

"Hate can only get you so far," Glen said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, but he's also smart, and he knows how to get smart people together. Why he hasn't started calling all of us together yet I don't know, but if he's not dead I know that he will be trying something. He is smart, and he can save us, I know it," Julie said with great intensity.

"And what am I?" Glen responded with mock confusion, "Chopped liver?"

"No offense, but I'd rather trust a guy with a 4.0 GPA and the organizational skills enough to get us into this game than a guy who can't remember all his teachers names, has an arm cast and was assigned a carpet sample book as a weapon," Julie said as she pulled out her cellular phone. Enthusiastically the girl began to dial Isaac's number like she knew it by heart.

Glen sighed as he watched his ex-girlfriend try to call Isaac. He still loved her, there would be no getting around that. But she could still be so hurtful without even recognizing it. Julie was a writer, she prided herself in her brutal honesty, but even so she just didn't know the bounds of human feeling it seemed sometimes. It was amazing enough that she still maintained him as a friend, Glen would always feel thankful for that, but the fact that they had gotten together in the first place still amazed him sometimes. _Can't help love buddy, when you fall, you fall hard. Who knows, in a situation like this you may even have a chance to make things up again. Foolish optimism? Maybe, but you never know. Might even be one of those if-I'm-the-last-man-on-earth sorts of things._

But the Isaac situation wasn't just protective contrariness; he did scare Glen some. Sure, he knew idealism and thought it was cool (though he would still try to dissuade Julie from getting some of her more intense essays out into the public eye), but Isaac seemed to know no fear. At least when it came to other people. Isaac still liked to keep something of a buffer zone from all he could see, making sure there were always people around and in front of him to take the fall if need be. As far as Glen was concerned, that was a definite problem. Isaac Freemantle was an idealist, but he was still no fool. No matter what side he would take in the Battle Royale, he (_and his people_) would be dangerous...

* * *

"I say we grease this rat-fuck son of a bitch right now!" Christina Montressor, a.k.a. Girl # 24 practically shouted as she knocked Rich Miller, a.k.a. Boy # 1 to the ground with her baseball bat. Although he had a pistol shoved into the front of his belt, for some reason he did not use it. Instead he knelt down in pain, crying and holding his bruised face. When Christina's anger was up, it had a hard time coming down and an even harder time dissipating in a constructive way. Her face was exotic (a mix of French, Irish, Portuguese and Masai she would proudly state) but held a pair of steely eyes so light blue they almost appeared silver. Their intensity would often help her psych out opponents in field hockey, but here it made her look every bit the monster.

Even Hugo Diaz, a.k.a. Boy # 4, would readily admit that she scared him as she beat Rich up, and he was her _friend._ Though nearly twice her width and seemingly half her intelligence, the boy knew enough to stay out of her way when she got into it, and she was getting into it. With the rage she was in he was even beginning to doubt the Tommy Gun he had been assigned would do much to stop her. _Only if you want to stop her though. If what they say is right he deserves every bit coming to him. One of us has gotta hurt him probably. Kill him maybe even. Whatever, right?_

In the grand scheme of things Hugo had at the very least some semblance of a notion of how little he mattered. He was never a thinker, never one of the people who told other people to do things. He had always been the doer.

Simply put he was a thug. Back in the olden days as he liked to look upon them (_what, three, four years?_) he had lived in the big city. The Motor City. Rock City. Detroit. Growing up in more bad areas than he could remember (dad tended to move around a lot depending on where the best dealers were), he had found that some valued his nature as a blunt object. He had been a gang member... well, longer than even he could remember (though admittedly that wasn't long), and for a while things made sense in that way. He would beat people up, they would laugh and hang out and shit, the older boys mostly did the heavier stuff. All he ever did was stand lookout and hurt people. Much later he would realize that they never brought him in on any of the bigger things because he was both a) not that bright and b) a good fall guy if anything bad ever went down. But at the time, it was a good existence. Things made sense then.

And then dad OD'd.

Out of the city, the boy was whisked away to live with his grandmother (a woman he had only seen maybe a dozen times prior) in the completely suburban and low key Amberlaine. It was a culture shock to say the very least. People in Amberlaine had no fear. There was an order to things, no sense in rule of the streets. There was a random criminal element, sure, but nothing that he could call a home. Nothing like the old days. The good days. He could have been a bully if he wanted to, but that held no real attraction. Through much of his high school career he had considered a life of relatively obscurity between his education and inevitable transfer to a trade school to be all but a certainty.

But there was Isaac Freemantle, a.k.a. Boy # 17. He changed everything.

When people before had made Hugo feel like an idiot for not knowing what he probably should have about the world, Isaac had a tremendous amount of patience. He took Hugo under his wing, tutoring him in classes where his education had lacked and further teaching him about the truths in politics in the _real_ America they lived in. In all this, Isaac never asked for anything in return but friendship and occasional bodyguard work. To say that he trusted Isaac Freemantle would be an understatement. Hugo would have done anything for Isaac if he were asked. _Anything._

"No!" Mallory Bell, a.k.a. Girl # 1, shouted as she pointed her kukri at Christina threateningly, "We can't kill him!"

"Why the fuck not?" Christina asked as she kicked the boy in the stomach for good measure.

"We can't, we're still people, aren't we? Look at him, what's done is done, can't you see that you're hurting him?" Mallory pleaded. She looked around to the rest of the group in an effort to get some support, but they pretty much kept quiet. Darwin Wong, a.k.a. Boy # 20, suddenly found an extreme interest in sorting through his bottles of liquor. Sophia Apollinar, a.k.a. Girl # 6, simply lit up a cigarette and watched. Amber Miike, a.k.a. Girl # 5, walked away to a pew further from the action, while her brother Jordan Miike, a.k.a. Boy # 16, kept his place despite the attack. He knew what had to be done and the part that he was going to take in it.

"Sophia, please..." Mallory continued.

"If I were running this show you'd have a lot more of my interest," Sophia said simply, "but this is Isaac's shindig. He makes the call. If it were up to me I'd be in there with you Chrissy beating the ever living snot out of Richie, but it's not up to me."

"Should probably stop still," Hugo said simply, "for now at least."

Christina looked to him with those penetrating eyes. On this one Hugo held his ground.

"If you keep beating him up I think you'll kill him. Let Isaac say first if he should be dead. If he says he should be iced, I won't stop you. You can use my machine gun if you'd like, that'd probably be cool," Hugo said with a wavering grin. Mallory looked disgusted with the entire proceeding.

"You could," Isaac said finally as he rejoined the group from the church's back room, "but that would be too noisy and would probably draw every hunter in the area down on where we are now. I can't allow that. We'll all die."

"Who was on the phone?" Christina asked.

"Jules. She and Glen are hiding out in the high school, but they'll be on their way to join our insurrection shortly. We'll have an army in no time, and then we'll be on our way to getting out of here. _That_ Christina is of course the ultimate plan, not killing people indiscriminately just because we do not like them," Isaac continued smoothly.

"But you... you called him here!" Christina spat out with frustration as she thrust her baseball bat at the downed boy, "You wanted this piece of shit here!"

At this Isaac could only shrug his shoulders. True, he had known Rich was in the area (how he knew this he would tell no one but Sophia) and had called him up to join them in the church for a civil conversation. There was always the risk of course that Rich could come in guns blazing and wipe them all out, but with Hugo, Christina and the rest being rather well armed he had little worry about anything resembling that. Besides, Rich was a coward.

But he couldn't have been that much of a coward, Isaac did have to give him that much credit. He did come to the church and without a gun in his hands at that. They had let him keep it in the front of his pants to make him feel more comfortable and amenable to questioning on condition that everyone else would be able to keep their guns pointed at him. Isaac considered it to be a fair trade. They were about to get down to things properly when Julie called, and, well, it appeared that things had gone south rather quickly once he left the room.

"Christina, could you leave us for a moment?" Isaac asked.

"But-" Christina protested angrily.

"But nothing, I am perfectly capable of defending myself, and lacking that Hugo, Sophia, Jordan and Darwin here will back me up rather effectively I am sure. Go cool off a bit, take a drink perhaps," Isaac continued.

"My bag's all yours if you wanna get a little hammered," Darwin said simply.

Christina stormed off in a huff, her grip on the baseball bat if anything intensifying tenfold it seemed. Knowing what was going to go down and that there was no way she could change any of it, Mallory followed Christina rather closely. She did not want to see what was going to go down. It would give her nightmares.

As Rich whimpered on the floor, Isaac calmly reached down to the stricken boy and pulled the gun from in front of his pants. Ejecting the magazine, the boy calmly and meticulously ejected all but one of the bullets in it before slamming the clip back home and reinserting it into the boys belt.

"Sophia, take his bag. He won't be needing it anymore. Darwin, frisk him and make sure he doesn't have any more ammunition stashed away on his person," Isaac said quickly. The commands didn't quite come out sounding like orders, but they followed them readily and unquestioningly all the same. As Sophia robbed the boy of his bag and Darwin announced that he was clean, Isaac continued.

"I'm sorry that I was busy on the phone in the other room, people do tend to call at the most inopportune times, don't they?" Isaac said with half a laugh. The boy on the ground looked up with confusion and pain, which was exactly where Isaac had wanted him. The boy was dough, he could be molded and questioned appropriately now. As much as he may have condemned Christina's near murderous actions, they were exactly what was needed under the circumstances.

"Richard, we've been friends, have we not?" Isaac asked.

"Of course we have!" Rich said defensively, "Since middle school, right?"

"Perhaps, the way time keeps on slipping I'm unsure sometimes how long everything actually has been," Isaac said simply, "you've been a good friend at that. Quite caring, quite honest...

Isaac sighed. Stretching his hands outward, he laced them behind his head in an effort to appear casual as he sat in a pew right next to the downed Rich.

"The only thing I don't get is how we were found out. Well, I didn't get would be more appropriate. We had a good thing going on, a pretty decent demonstration that would have probably gotten many of us arrested, maybe a few killed, but nothing quite like this. Someone told about what was going on in advance, and they clearly had time to prepare things so that we would be in this game. And I'm pretty sure it was you Rich, I'm pretty sure you were the one who sold us out. You were, weren't you?" Isaac added calmly. He spoke as if he were casually discussing the weather, not matters of life and death.

Rich's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. He backed up against the nearest pew with a voice that practically squealed, "Wait, what? No, no, NO! Why would I-"

Quickly reaching down, Isaac slapped Rich across the face hard.

"Don't patronize me boy!" Isaac practically shouted as he forced himself eye to eye with Rich, "Only the seven of us had any idea of the plan any time in advance and it clearly took them time to plan this. And does, 'I was good, I was good, I shouldn't be here, I was good!' sound familiar? I did get the wording right, didn't I?"

"Yeah, he said that," Sophia said simply, "I was only a couple rows behind him, heard it like it was right next to me."

"I... I..." Rich blubbered with tears streaming down his face. Although with his thick pants no one could see it, Rich had emptied his bladder in fright. Isaac then took the boys face in his hands calmly, pleasantly even. He spoke in a warm, fathering voice.

"Don't worry, we're not going to kill you. I'm going to let you do that yourself," Isaac said as he pointed to the gun in Rich's belt, "I left one bullet in there for you, and we are going to let you go. Sure, you might walk out of here feeling glad to be alive, feeling as if you were spared a bullet so to speak when we banish you, and you could walk for quite a while with that feeling of superiority knowing you defeated death in this one instance. However, soon the game is going to start to close in around you. You will start to see hunters all around whether they are there or not, and one bullet is not nearly enough to defend yourself with. Being the coward you are, the first sign of trouble you see, and I expect it would be quite soon, and that bullet is going to look pretty good. But if that doesn't make it look good enough, we are going to give you some incentive..."

With that, Isaac nodded over to Hugo. Slinging the Tommy Gun over his shoulder, Hugo reached into his pocket and pulled free a relic of the old life. It was a well worn switch blade with a silver shark imprinted ornately on the side. Isaac had deemed this task necessary, had told them all what was going to be done when Rich was going to be captured. No one save Christina actively wanted to do it (_and she'd have killed him_), and thus it had fallen to Hugo. He accepted the task unquestioningly. The large boy flipped out its blade and approached Rich methodically.

"What, what are you doing?" Rich asked with terror as Hugo approached him with the knife. Isaac simply nodded again, and in a flash Darwin and Jordan knocked Rich down, pinning him to the floor while he fought and screamed madly. Hugo knelt by his head with the knife in hand, looking up at Isaac and awaiting his command.

"We're going to give you a squealer's scar," Isaac said as he looked down at Rich as Hugo held the switchblade above his head, "it's a simple operation really. Hugo here is going to put that blade in your nose and slice open one of your nostrils. It will bleed like hell and hurt more than you could ever imagine, but it won't kill you. No, that you're going to have to do yourself, and after this your pistol is going to start looking really good, believe me. The way you're going to look, nobody is going to want anything to do with you..."

Nodding his head quite simply, Isaac got Hugo to finally descend with his blade.

Rich screamed. A lot.


	15. Hour 6, Part 2: 47 Contestants Remaining

* * *

**Hour 6, Part 2**

**47 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

A light powder of snow dusted Amberlaine's smallest Christmas tree lot, giving the merchandise on display an even more wholesome sheen than ever before. Although the trees weren't nearly as nice as the ones they had in the lot behind the YMCA, they more than made up for their lack of selection in bulk. What was normally a vacant lot was packed densely with Christmas trees of all shapes and sizes. The air smelled thickly of freshly cut trees (_well, mostly fresh at least_) and snow. Mostly abandoned, two teenaged girls made up the bulk of the lots customers late on Saturday. One was blonde with curly hair and a cheerleader's outfit showing from beneath her heavy jacket, while the other was an African-American beauty who held her warmth inside with a letterman's jacket. Normally these best of friends would be wandering around giggling and discussing the fads of the day. But in this lot, they were fighting.

Hera Morgan knew that by all rights she should have been happy on a day like this. She was Christmas tree shopping with her best friend. This was something the parents had always done, but this time they gave Hera the keys and asked her to take over. _Just one of those steps in growing up, eh?_

Instead of peace and a feeling of accomplishment at growing up, her friend dropped a bombshell. Hera had listened to the proposal carefully, hearing her friend out and considering all the options. As the content got more and more intense, she was glad that they were basically the only people on the lot. All the same, it still sounded like madness.

"You say you want a revolution, huh?" Hera said simply.

"More or less, yeah," Miranda Gardner responded as she pushed one of her curly blonde locks aside, "so what do you think?"

"What do I think?" Hera asked almost rhetorically. _Hmmm, gonna think real hard on this one girl, aren't you?_

"I think it sounds like suicide to be perfectly blunt," Hera added, "you want to stand up to an insane government and just wait to see how they're going to respond. Honestly, what the hell is a protest like this going to achieve?"

"It's going to open some eyes!" Miranda said emphatically, "It's going to show people the horrors that this government is capable of and how we are not going to take it anymore! For too long people have been just letting things happen, why don't we take a chance to happen to them!"

Hera mulled the words over in her mind for a moment before smiling softly.

"You know that kind of rhetoric sounds much better coming out of Isaac," she said simply.

"Fuck you," Miranda spat back.

"No, fuck you!" Hera returned angrily, "I don't like what's going on in this country any more than you or anyone else does, but if I'm going to do something about it I want to do something about it in a constructive manner, not a futile gesture like this that's only going to get people killed. If you're going to do something, do something with assurances of victory-"

"But people are going to see-"

"No people aren't going to see, are you truly naïve enough to believe that the American Confederated Networks aren't going to bow down and simply sweep this under the rug like everything else that's going on in the world right now?"

"We hear about The Raptors-"

"We only hear about them because they want the people to hate them. They want to portray these people who may or may not be freedom fighters as terrorists and murderers, not as people who should be emulated and followed. Anything that could truly get people to sympathize with causes against the government and the Battle Royale program is just going to be swept under the rug. You know that. I know that."

Hera sighed. It hurt to throw that all out there, and it had definitely gotten to Miranda. The other girl was shaking slightly, but out of fear or anger Hera could not tell. _This isn't turning out to be that good a day after all, is it?_

"At least I believe in something," Miranda said. Her voice was level, shaking slightly but still with clearly controlled effort.

She added, "When was the last time you believed in something enough that you would risk breaking out of your comfortable high school and softball world? I'm asking you this not because I am trying to recruit you, I'm asking you this as your friend. Your best friend."

"Are we still best friends?" Hera asked waveringly.

"I'd like to think so," Miranda said.

"Then if you are still my best friend, don't take part in this. Don't you do it, and if you can try to talk as many people as you can out of it. If this happens, a lot of people we know are going to die. Ralph Fogal has already died. Do you want there to be more blood on your hands for a senseless effort?" Hera asked earnestly. _Come on girl, please do this, please believe me, just back out now, get the hell out of this before something bad happens, please say no, just go on, we can still get a tree and take it home, just please don't let this get any worse..._

Miranda looked up to her best friend with tear streaked eyes. Hera could already see the answer that was going to come in her friends face.

"I have to do this," Miranda said as she turned to leave.

"Miranda, wait!" Hera practically yelped as she grabbed to pull her friend back.

"I have to do this, and I am going to, and there is nothing you can do to stop me. If you won't open your eyes, fine, but you will always stay in the dark," Miranda said with some level of anger as she tore herself free from her friends grasp. Reaching into a pocket in her jacket, she pulled a thick and many-times folded pamphlet free and tried to flatten it out. Looking with the slightest smile of nostalgia on her face, Miranda handed it to her friend.

"Consider this an early Christmas present. If you read it, please tell me what you think. If you don't want to read it, don't keep it lying around. Burn it if you can. You can do a pretty good stretch for having that the last time I heard. I know you'll do the right thing, you always have," Miranda said simply as she turned to beat a quick retreat. It was clear that she was trying to keep herself from breaking down entirely, and because of this Hera chose not to stop her. Though it would not be the last time she saw Miranda alive, part of her feared it all the same. _Please don't let this be the end. I couldn't do it, but please let her be strong enough to make it through this thing. She's tough, she's a survivor, just let her make it through all right. Please God, if she makes it through this all right..._

* * *

The girl sat on top of a washing machine in Grover's Mill's Laundromat considering her next move. At least that was what she told herself she was doing. More than anything she just sat in place considering the morning's announcement and toying with the folded papers in her parka's pocket. She must have unfolded and refolded them dozens of times since getting into the game, but it didn't change anything. She was still in the game, and Miranda was still dead.

Though the pamphlet she held was amazingly illegal to have, for some reason the minds behind the 8th Annual United States Battle Royale allowed Hera Morgan, a.k.a. Girl # 20, to bring it into the game. It was now more folded than ever (probably because of the rough treatment involved in processing) and one of the corners of its cover was torn, but its text and words were still as legible as ever.

"COMMON SENSE FOR A NEW AMERICA"

"ESSAYS ON LIBERTY, FREEDOM & REVOLUTION FOR A MODERN AMERICA"

"CONTRIBUTIONS BY UNCLE SAM ADAMS, LORETTA GOMEZ, THOMAS HOWELL, ABIGAIL LOVEGOOD, THE OWL & MORE"

The essays inside it were indeed impressive and had given her a lot to think about, but not nearly enough to make her want to rebel. She would have gotten rid of it, nearly had in the days before the protest, but something in her could never actually get down to it. It was Miranda's. It was a gift. Was it really right to destroy it? Miranda had marked it up to no end, underlining favorite passages and writing her own bits of commentary in the side. Having known her for the better portion of their lives, Hera had not once recalled seeing Miranda read something for fun. But this... this had spoken to her somehow. _Or someone made it speak to her... Fucking Isaac._

In the end it all came down to Isaac Freemantle, a.k.a. Boy # 17. It always did, didn't it? He had gotten Miranda into the political scene. He had gotten her into all these causes and the idea of rebellion. And he was who Hera was trying to find. If she could, she would slap him upon seeing him. It would be a long shot, since odds figured that he would already have a rather significant supply of bodyguards, but if she could she knew it would feel good. It would not make up for Miranda. Not by a long shot. On that one she had already shed her tears, they had long since been replaced by righteous anger, and if she had any say in it she would stab Isaac Freemantle with the butterfly knife she had been provided. She would stab him and watch him twitch, watch him bleed and beg and plead. She would gut him just like the bunny in the video had gutted Miranda, and she would smile. If someone tried to stop her, so be it. She would have killed Isaac Freemantle, and that would have been worth it.

The only hitch in the plan was that her current traveling partner was Lakisha Childs, a.k.a. Girl # 3, and she said that Isaac had a plan to get them out of the game. _That does certainly throw a wrench into things, doesn't it?_

Hera didn't normally hang out with Lakisha, but on a day to day basis they were on friendly terms. Lakisha, although quite pretty despite her braces, was still a lot more on the nerdy side than Hera usually liked in a friend. She seemed quite popular enough for some reason (probably because Isaac usually kept her close), but more often than not she hung out in the school's computer and electronics clubs.

Meeting her in the Battle Royale had been pure happenstance (running into her in a dark alley and realizing that she was better than being alone), but it appeared to be for the best for both of them. Lakisha was hardly a fighter and had been assigned a pair of fuzzy dice for her weapon (which she promptly and disgustedly had discarded early on), while Hera had a knife and was a powerful athlete. On the other hand, Lakisha had promised that she could take Hera to a group of people that were looking to escape and boasted that she could probably figure out a way to take off the collars. As far as Hera was concerned it seemed to be a fair trade.

"We should get going," Lakisha said as she brought Hera back into the real world. The girl on the washing machine was glad to see that her traveling partner had made it back from the restroom all right; in times like this there always existed the fear of disappearance.

"Hey, ho, let's go," Hera said to herself softly as she placed the pamphlet back into her pocket. _Always gonna keep you close Miranda. Won't let anyone forget you._

"Come again?" Lakisha asked as she swung her backpack over her shoulder.

"Nothing, classical reference," Hera replied as she swung her own backpack onto her shoulder, "let's roll."

* * *

Moving around with Lakisha was neither easy nor fast. Incredibly asthmatic under even ideal conditions, the girl had an even harder time maintaining her breathing in the cold weather atmosphere of the Battle Royale. It seemed that every block (sometimes half block) they moved, they would need to rest for about ten minutes or so so she could normalize her breathing. Frustration was setting in, but Hera forced herself to remain calm. _It's all right, sure, you're being led to the one person you want to stay away from and under normal Battle Royale conditions would probably be targeting with death, but instead you're letting one of his people lead the way while you're just tagging along. But if she really can take the collars off... well, that would really open up a new dimension in things, wouldn't it? You're doing the right thing..._

"Hold up," Hera said as they rounded a corner, "I want to do another map check."

"You checked it two blocks ago, we're going in the right direction," Lakisha responded.

"Look, I just want to make sure we're going the right way, alright? Call me cautious-like," Hera replied.

"You're cautious-like, but it's keeping us out here a lot longer than we need to be," Lakisha said smartly. Hera eyed the other girl fiercely. It would have been so easy to snap back and call her on her asthma, but that would accomplish nothing except making the journey all the more difficult. Instead, she quickly brought the plastic pouch that hung around her neck to her face so she could double-check where they were. _All right, followed things right, just another..._

"All right," Hera said simply, "we just cross this street, then it's about four blocks west and we're set for the church."

"It's just that easy?" Lakisha asked sarcastically.

"It's just that easy," Hera practically grumbled. _You're serious about wanting to throw your lot in with this girl and her crowd? You're braver than I thought._

Creeping around the buildings corner, the two girls eyed the white expanse of Main Street. Although it was no more or less wide than any average Main Street in any average Midwest town, to the two girls (well, Hera at least) it appeared to be a no-man's land nearly a mile wide. A single car sat stalled eerily in the middle of the street, the floodlights above casting its shadow in many different directions. The sun was beginning to peek through the clouds in the distance, but it still looked to be a grim day.

"So who's turn is it?" Lakisha asked. They had taken turns every time they would cross a street in case opportunistic snipers happened to be watching. At least in that case they had an even chance of living and dying.

"Yours," Hera said quickly. With her knife held in hand, the girl pointed quickly to the street, "You get behind the car, I'll meet you there, then you hop, skip and jump to the building on the other side of the street, you get me?"

Taking a hit off of her inhaler, Lakisha responded, "Yeah, totally."

"Hit it!" Hera said sharply as she pushed Lakisha into the street. The smaller girl ran quickly in spite of her asthma, her pack bobbing up and down with every step. She ducked down quickly beside the car and waved for Hera. Looking around the corner of the building just to be safe, Hera took off in a run and ducked behind the stalled car. _Done this a million times, it gets easier every time, especially when she's on human shield duty._

This made her laugh slightly. _Miranda would've found that one funnier than hell._

"What's so funny?" Lakisha asked.

"Nothing, just stress, gonna go two for two?" Hera replied.

"No problem," Lakisha said as she stood up, running across the street and hiding behind the corner of a building. A few blocks more and they would be at the church. As she began to stand, Hera could only marvel at how simple their flight had been.

* * *

The hunting had been poor, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It seemed that people were hiding, laying low, staying out of sight. That would only add to the challenge of the hunt, and that much had appeal. As well, there were still ample opportunities for hunting. According to the morning announcement, only five people had bought it since the game began. Seeing their names crossed off the list around his neck hardly disconcerted the boy. _Five people, six hours, not a bad start. You can get things going rather easily, no sweat. You got skill, and it will keep you alive._

That freak Nick King was dead, which definitely made CJ Dartanian, a.k.a. Boy # 10, happy. He almost beat the little bastard in the morning, but their exchanged shots mattered little. _Little fucker had the gall to spit that neck chunk from Zora in your lap. Made you yell like a little bitch. He had what was coming to him. Find out who did it and give 'em a drink eh? Then maybe a bullet between the eyes. Give 'em mercy for offing the little fucker._

Sliding a Red Apple cigarette between his lips, the boy lit the cancer stick with a practiced maneuver. He was standing out in the open on the town's main street with a cigarette in his mouth and a pistol in his hand, by all rights he should have been terrified for his life. Instead he felt like a gunslinger in the wild west, ready to march down the street and open fire. Whether he was the sheriff or the man in black, he did not know. _Eastwood or Van Cleef, the choice is yours ain't it?_

He could have challenged anyone he wanted to and won. It wasn't necessarily a certainty, but if sheer will could lead to a victory, then he already had the trophy.

Walking smoothly, almost casually up the street, the boy eyed a car sitting right in the middle of it. More than anything else, this actually surprised him. He had been wondering why there seemed to have been no cars in the town and simply assumed that people took them with them when they abandoned the town. This car sitting at an odd diagonal angle in the middle of the street though, that was certainly a mystery. Always having considered himself something of a motorhead, CJ walked toward the vehicle, edging along the businesses on the east side of the street to keep his profile as low as possible. _Probably just some peace of shit riceburner sedan or crappy hybrid, but if you got any luck it's some good old USA rolling iron. GTO, Charger, Barracuda, I could go for anything that'd roar loud enough to wake the dead..._

Movement off the edge of the street caught the boys eye, causing him to flatten himself against the nearest building in an effort to hide. Two figures, one after the other ducked behind the car. Neither seemed to have a firearm by the looks of things. Taking one last drag off the cigarette, the boy spat it out into the shallow snow. Double-checking the magazine, CJ watched as one girl ran away from the car to the other side of the street and smiled.

_Definitely Van Cleef._

* * *

Three quick gunshots rattled the side of the car that Hera hid behind, shattering both the windshield and one side window. Reflexively, Hera cried out in fear and surprise and ducked down behind the car. The shooter was on the other side, that much was clear, but that was the only solace the girl had. She had no gun and was hiding behind a vehicle that offered limited protection at best. All the killer had to do was walk up and shoot her and be over with it. That was bad.

The shooter put two more shots into the side of the car, and at this Lakisha screamed in fear. Looking over to her traveling partner, Hera could see the stark face of terror. The girl was pitiful, shaking and looking on the verge of an attack as she stood safely behind the building. Hera felt conflicting emotions as she looked to the small and shivering nerd. On the one hand, she could understand the fear entirely (and being pinned down behind a car she felt she had even more of a right to know what terror felt like). On the other hand, the fact that the girl stood there doing absolutely nothing and just screaming her head off pissed her off to no end.

"Run! Get to the meeting!" Hera practically screamed at the shivering girl. Lakisha looked up with frightful eyes, then turned on her heels and bolted. _At least one of you is going to make it._

Another bullet hit the car, but Hera was pretty sure that it was just a symbolic act. Soon the shooter would be walking up and looking to make a kill shot, and she was going to give them hell if she could. Looking to the car's passenger side door, the girl summoned up all the strength she could and punched the side mirror. A heavy bit of metal, it simply swung about on its swiveling base. Punching it again, the girl caught it before it fell free into the snow. _A knife in one hand, a broken off side mirror in one hand, looks like you're ready to take on the world, aren't you?_

Hera pumped herself up. It was a familiar feeling, like getting ready for a game but about a hundred times more intense. She had no clue what in all she planned to do with a knife and a broken car mirror against someone with a semi-automatic pistol, but she figured that she'd know when it ha-

BOOM!

A thundering blast that did not belong to her assailant rang through the air.

"Get the hell out of here!" a masculine voice she didn't recognize shouted. Whipping her head around to the building she and Lakisha had run from behind just moments before, Hera could see a hefty boy with glasses wielding a double-barreled shotgun standing alongside a scared looking girl.

"Hey fuck you!" a voice she recognized as CJ Dartanian shot back as he began to fire upon the boy with the shotgun. The boy with the shotgun ducked quickly behind the building, waiting for the shooting to end. When CJ paused in his assault, the boy with the shotgun snuck out once more and fired. Hera could hear CJ yell in pain following this report and smiled. _Hope he killed him._

Chancing a look over the car, Hera could see that the shotgun-boy's attack had blown a large hole in the right shoulder of CJ's parka. It seemed to do little good, but it did piss him off at the very least. She could see the boy with the shotgun trying to reload quickly, hands shaking under the pressure of the gunfight. CJ readied another assault, firing off three more ineffective shots before his gun ran empty. _I think he can reload faster than shotgun-boy. If you want to do anything about this, you gotta do it now._

Jumping out from behind the car, Hera wound her arm up and threw the broken side-mirror in a very practiced maneuver. The mirror bounced off CJ's head with an almost deafening "THOCK!", stunning him and sending him reeling. Rushing the distance between them with almost startling speed, Hera simply and forcefully stabbed the blade of her butterfly knife into CJ's stomach.

The boys eyes registered nothing surprise as a muted "WHOOF!" escaped his lips. In pure shock he swung his hand around and pistol-whipped Hera weakly across the head, knocking her aside (and pulling the knife free with her). He seemed to have lost all interest in reloading his pistol and began backing down the street, one hand over his stomach that began to show red rather brightly.

"Wha-fuck?" he muttered simply, looking around in confusion.

"Get out of the way!" the boy in the shotgun yelled. Hera only had a moment to turn before she could see the boy and the girl following him dart out from behind the building. The girl wore a parka of a different color (_when did she change?_) and carried a bizarre curved sword rather uncertainly. The boy carried his double-barreled shotgun with a great intensity, although his face seemed to register quite a bit of fear.

"Fuck! Fuck you!" the wounded CJ yelled as he took off in a plodding run. Hera watched him plod between a couple businesses in town, drops of blood from his stomach staining the snow red in small sporadic bursts. The boy and girl joined Hera, and she finally found she could place them. The boy was Conrad Ripley, a.k.a. Boy # 18, a hefty and pasty white boy with thick glasses and a patch of brown hair. He was so normal-looking that for the longest time she had wondered if he was actually a serial killer. The girl was Stacey Golden, a.k.a. Girl # 4, and all Hera really knew of her was that she was annoying. The Jewish girl was known for being something of a loudmouth and had handed out more pamphlets for environmental causes than Hera could remember. But Hera more than knew that beggars couldn't be choosers, and she was glad to be alive.

"I coulda had him if you got out of the way like two seconds before," Conrad said with slight irritation.

"Don't worry about him, he's got a hero complex," Stacey said with a nervous smile.

"I have a hero complex?" Conrad asked with genuine confusion.

"Yeah, you tend to run to girls who are being shot at when most folks woulda just hidden out and waited for things to stop. Makes you a hero whether you wanna be one or not," Stacey said with a smile. Conrad honestly didn't appear to know how to take this, while Stacey simply stood by looking happy and smug.

"You saved my life, that's all that matters to me. Thank you," Hera said gratefully. Conrad's confused face turned into something of a smile.

"No problem," Conrad said with half a smile.

"What happened to your partner? Was that Lakisha?" Stacey asked earnestly.

Hera looked at the two long and hard. It would be all too easy under the circumstances to still mistrust these two, even if they did just save her life. She didn't know either of them all that well, and they were wielding a blood-stained sword and a shotgun. _But Miranda would've told you not to fear. She'd have told you to do the right thing. You may not like Isaac, you may not like the cards that have been dealt to you, but you have to do the right thing. That's what she would have wanted._

"She ran to the church. There's some other people there we know. They're planning on getting out," Hera said simply, "Wanna come with?"


	16. Hour 7: 47 Contestants Remaining

* * *

**Hour 7**

**47 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

It was probably the most difficult decision she had made in her life, but she had made it. She was going to break up with him. It wasn't going to be easy, she held no illusions about that; they had been together for a long time. And their time was good. Really, there hadn't been much of anything that she would have called bad except for his occasionally overbearing behavior (partly because she had become so accustomed to it she hardly noticed it anymore). There was nothing wrong really.

She just wanted a change.

But the timing had to be right, that was the key. The holidays were coming up; tell him before and it'd destroy his Christmas. Tell him too late after, he goes away to college with a bunch of unnecessary illusions about their future. She had to do it just right. She just hoped he wouldn't be mad.

More than anything else, Jessica Tyler, a.k.a. Girl # 21, didn't want to hurt his feelings. Calvin Spencer, a.k.a. Boy # 11, could be a pretty intense guy quite a lot of the time, but overall he was really sweet. He just needed to tone things down a few notches. _Probably should stop the coffee too, think that might have something to do with it? It's going to break his heart still, you know that. Are you honestly being fair here? No, I'm entitled to whatever I want, I'm a grown woman now._

_Woman._

That word sent a shudder down the back of her spine for some odd reason. _Woman, you can't even buy a beer yet. Hell, your birthday's far enough off that you can't even legally buy a pack of cigarettes yet. Not that you'd want to, but still... You're never going to reach your birthday, you do know that, right?_

"No," the girl said aloud as she tried to fight back the tears, "No, nothing is set. Not yet, I can do this, I can survive."

But still... she had a gut feeling that if she were to survive that she would probably owe it to Calvin Spencer. Back in middle school she was easily one of the meekest people on the planet. Never spoke up above a whisper, never raised her hand in class, just perfectly quiet and fitting in with the status quo. But Calvin had found her, romanced her, forced her to break through her shells and become an assertive human being. From that she had blossomed into a beautiful and sociable girl, while he... (_gloated?_) just sat by with the greatest look of satisfaction on his face.

They had been an item, and a popular source of gossip at that. He was pretty popular, she was beginning to get pretty hot, and they had one of the most stable and steady relationships in all of Amberlaine High School. One of the greatest debates amongst the student body seemed to be determining when Calvin and Jessica would just up and get married.

_That_ line of thinking terrified Jessica to no end. She didn't want to just settle down, she didn't want to just be the popular cheerleader who wound up marrying her high school sweetheart. More than anything, Jessica Tyler did not want to live in Amberlaine all of her life. She wanted to get out, stretch her legs, explore the world...

...not like the game made _that _very possible.

Thinking about the past did no good. Thinking about a future that would likely never come did no good. It just made things worse. It made her cry, and those tears in this environment had a nasty habit of freezing to the cheeks. Tossing the remains of the MRE she had been munching on behind a tree, Jessica continued her hike.

* * *

Even before she had met Calvin, Jessica loved to take nature hikes. No matter what the time of year she just loved wandering the forest, picking up plants and bugs that interested her (and occasionally eating those berries she knew to be safe). There was something greatly soothing about hikes that she couldn't quite explain. Had she had a decent grasp on what meditation was, she likely would have associated the two concepts with each other. Completely throwing herself into a good hike was what Jessica usually did to unwind.

Additionally it did prove to be great exercise, and combined with her cheerleading it had kept Jessica in excellent physical shape. Her body was lean and muscular, her face beautiful and greatly reflective of her African-American heritage. Like any young woman in the prime of her life (and with a love for chocolate) her face occasionally hosted a smattering of acne, but not enough that makeup couldn't cover things up. _Not like you'll have to worry much about that one again, huh? Even if you make it out of here, who's to say you're still going to have a face?_

"Stop it, just... just stop it," she told herself with a shudder.

Whether she was hiking to stay away from hunters or her own thoughts, Jessica no longer knew. In the beginning of the game, sticking to the outskirts of town had seemed like a pretty damn good idea. Cold, but all the same a pretty good idea. Instead of rushing into town like all the other good little competitors she had kept what she hoped was a safe distance from it. The outskirts were more of a snowy wasteland dominated by evergreens and the familiar and comforting smell of pine, but at least there were some cabins and farms should she ever need shelter (and the way her nose was feeling some shelter wouldn't be half bad). For a while in the game's earliest hours she'd hidden out in some tourist's cabin, assessing her situation and trying the best she could not to think too hard about it. She tried watching TV (_to normalize? to get a clue?_), but all they had were old reruns of _The_ _Benny the Bunny Show_. Upon first seeing that bright green bunny face, she screamed and chucked the remote at the television. The plastic device bounced harmlessly from the screen and clattered off the floor.

Realizing the absurdity of the situation, the girl couldn't help but laugh as she went to turn the television off. It wasn't the devil, it was just a guy in a green rabbit suit. _A guy in a green rabbit suit who killed four people with a pair of hedge clippers. Lovely image there, huh?_

All of a sudden, the house felt tainted. It was almost as if the rabbit brought with it an infectious disease. The air felt stale, rotten even. True, it was warmer inside than it was out, but there were better places to be. There were other cabins, other farmhouses, plenty of other places to hide. One of them had to be better than this... this place. This place with the bunny.

So she had gathered her supplies and left.

* * *

The girl could see a farmhouse, and next to it a barn that looked as if half the roof were caved in. It didn't look to be the most comfortable of hideaways in the world, but in a Battle Royale, what honestly could look safe? Every place potentially had someone hiding out in it, waiting around for someone to drop by so that they could strike. But this one didn't look as bad as it could have. There were no lights on inside either the house or the barn. No smoke came from the chimney. Nothing in the back of her mind, that part of human instinct that controls our very fight-or-flight nature, told her to get away from it. This made her about as happy as she could have been under the circumstances.

Snow crunched underneath her feet as she left the somewhat sparse tree line, and ever cautious the girl continued to eye the house. It wasn't new by any stretch of the imagination, but it had that distinctly homey feel that she liked in a house. It looked lived-in, it looked warm. It was the kind of place you could see a bunch of kids and animals running around; the kind of place where you could easily smell a fresh apple pie or hot tray of chocolate chip cookies any time of the year. It made it easy to ignore the few missing shingles and the mailbox (that still vaguely read M. Celeste) that had seemingly been entirely taken over by rust.

But the barn... that was hard to ignore. Situated just off to the side of the house and larger in size by almost half, it looked to Jessica like something out of a scary movie (_the ones you don't watch_). The wood was rotten-looking and shaded a deep brown with holes visible all throughout. The twin heavy front doors were clearly falling apart, one of them barely holding onto its last surviving hinge. Those doors promised many lurking terrors that Jessica's imagination went wild with. She could see a wall lined with rusted, dull looking tools. An impossible number of chains probably hung from the ceiling, clinking with every gust of wind that cut through the deteriorating walls. There was probably someone tied up in there waiting to be tor- _Seriously girl, stop doing this!_

Casting her eyes upward from the doors, the girl sighted the barn's hayloft. The black door cut into the second floor of the barn gaped wide open like a screaming mouth. The winch above the second port still held a length of rope that swung idly in the breeze, though it did appear as if the end had a hangman's noose tied to it. It had probably been like that since the town had been occupied, but the rope looked too new. Something about that universal symbol of death hanging at the end of the rope. _Get the fuck out of here, get into the house and just go to one of the sides that doesn't have a window facing the barn. Or a TV. Things are going to be all right..._

The house. Yes, the house she could focus on. The good old country home that she had probably always dreamed of. It wasn't something that Calvin would've liked, he was always into what was big and what was new. He liked the flashy and trendy, whatever was expensive and could be boasted about. _What he wants doesn't matter anymore. You're your own woman. Woman, you can say it. Your life is your own now, you can make whatever you want out of it. You don't need Calvin to approve anymore._

"Now let's just hope they got some Pop Tarts in their pantry somewhere," the girl said with a smile as she walked onto the front porch. The prospect of anything that wasn't bottled water and an MRE really began to appeal to the girl, so when she flung open the door she did so with great gusto.

For a fraction of a second the girl wondered why another door stood beyond the one she had just opened. Then she realized it was no door in her way, but rather a monster. A very large monster. Standing in the doorway she had just pulled open was a boy just a shade over six and a half feet tall and more than three hundred pounds of almost pure muscle. Instead of the regulation white jacket and cold weather pants that the other contestants had been provided with, this one simply wore a heavy red-checked long-sleeved flannel shirt and a pair of somewhat tattered overalls. The beasts feet were covered with some of the largest steel-toed boots the girl had ever seen, while a crude belt around its waist held odd trinkets that appeared to be bones and small leather pouches. Though she had no desire to see its face, she would not have been able to even if she wanted. It was covered crudely with a potato sack that had two eyeholes cut in it. The eyes read pure malice in a stupid sort of way. But the hands... the hands were the worst. Large and misshapen in a pair of black leather gloves and with incongruously shiny bracelets around its wrists, they held a great and gleaming double-headed woodsman's ax.

Jessica had met Grendel.

Too terrified even to scream, the girl quickly slammed the door in the monsters face and bolted to run. Not but half a second later the creature slammed its heavy ax through the door, nearly halving it in one strike. Kicking through with one of its massive feet, the beast destroyed what remained of the door as it ripped its way out of the house. Finally pulling herself together enough to realize what was going on, Jessica screamed. The monster approached unabated, swinging its ax in a wide swath that should have cut her in two. Thankfully years in cheerleading had given the girl excellent reflexes and she was able to dodge the attack just barely by the skin of her teeth.

The monster seemed confused as its ax became lodged in the wooden deck of the house, and it struggled rather feebly to get the weapon free. Seeing her only opportunity for escape come, Jessica turned on her heels and sprinted as quickly as she could through the snow to the forest. She knew that there was no way she could fight back against such a creature (her assigned weapon was a box cutter, which for all intents and purposes seemed to be amazingly useless), but she was smaller and almost certainly faster than it. She paid little mind as to what (or who) it was, simply letting the adrenaline and fear of the moment take her over. _Just a little bit farther, just a little bit farther to the trees and you'll be home free girl, just a little bit farther, hell, go into town, it's gotta be better than th-_

A heavy blow struck the girl in the back of her right thigh and sent her down to the ground with a dull groan. Getting back to her feet again was a struggle, but as the girl looked down she could see what had knocked her over. The rear half of an arrow stuck out from the back of her thigh quite painfully, a trickle of blood snaking its way down her pants. Gritting her teeth and pulling with all her might, the girl ripped the arrow free from her leg with a great gush of blood.

"Oh shit," she said fearfully as she chanced a look back to the house. She was maybe a hundred feet away from it, but that was still close enough to see that the monster had drawn up a second arrow and fired it. For a split second the girl felt that she could dodge the projectile. Then it buried itself cleanly into her stomach. As fire shot through her body, the girl could only weakly grab at the arrow as she fell to the ground. Exquisite pain the likes of which she never even knew to be possible coursed through every square inch of her body, only to all too soon be replaced by a certain numbness. _So this is what going into shock is like is it?_

With eyes glazing over, the girl could only just barely see as the monster approached her and grabbed her roughly by the feet. It dragged her with surprising speed back to the farm, and though she fought her attempts were weak at best. As she clawed at the snow, first one, then the other glove tore free from her hands. Two red streaks from the wounds in her body formed in the snow as the beast dragged her, and at that the girl found some grim humor. _It's not a bunny that gets you, but a beast..._

The creature had little finesse as it went about its business, quickly stripping the girl of her bag and the box cutter that she had stuffed into her belt. It forced the girl to cry out with pain as it removed the arrow from her stomach, but despite this protestation it continued methodically. It was when the monster began to forcibly undress her that Jessica began to fight back. She pushed and did her best to punch it, but her attacks were feeble at best. One punch to the side of the monsters head sent pain coursing up her wrist as it felt as though she had punched plate steel. _What the hell is this thing?_

Finally giving up on simply disrobing the struggling girl, Grendel ripped her clothing to shreds, finally forcing the bleeding-to-death girl to be naked as it dumped her into the snow. Jessica moaned pitifully, trying her best to cry out but failing miserably. The shock, the blood loss, the cold, all seemed to have sapped whatever energy she could have mustered. Even as it brought the winched noose from the barn and tied it around her feet, all she could do was bat at her attacker feebly.

"Please..." she choked out poorly. The monster held no pity and no remorse. It simply pulled on the winch, hoisting the girl violently into the air by her ankles as she finally found the energy to cry out loudly. She swung through the air, dizzied and disoriented by her attack, dimly aware that her hot blood was now trickling up her body and into her face. A trail of it went into her left eye, causing her to flutter in the new blindness it created. She was dimly aware that the monster had gone into the barn before she saw it again. Simply and forcefully the creature put an old washtub beneath the girl as she hung from her feet, and as she watched its hands the girl saw something that even under the circumstances managed to scare her even further. The bracelets around the creatures wrists weren't bracelets: they were teeth that were still attached to their braces, tied end to end around the beasts wrists like pieces of grotesque jewelry.

The beast disappeared behind her, fear and cold gripping her intensely. There would be no escape. No happy ending. No Christmas. No warm apple pie or chocolate chip cookies or good old farm house full of kids and animals. Hell, she wouldn't even see Calvin again. Somehow that thought seemed to strike her the hardest.

It was when she heard Grendel opening up the box cutter that Jessica began to scream in earnest.

* * *

Eugene Chidester, a.k.a. Boy # 3, had had a hard time in the opening hours of the game. Having never been in a fight in his entire life and admittedly being a major coward, being in the game was his version of a living hell. Additionally, there was the whole issue regarding how he crapped his pants on the bus. Not only was he terrified, not only was he humiliated, but he was covered in his own shit and waddling into the game like a baby with a freshly packed diaper. _Nicely done my good man, who'd have ever thunk that scared shitless actually meant scared shitless?_

Thankfully most of the houses were still well stocked with clothing, some of it even more thankfully was rather warm. He had washed up and found a new pair of pants in some tourists cabin (one not that far away from where Jessica had initially been hiding out), and things were beginning to look about as up as they could under the circumstances. He was still scared out of his mind, but at least it was better than being scared shitless. That he could deal without.

With his assigned Louisville Slugger baseball bat in hands, the boy had prowled the outer rim of the town, even going so far as to check out the Briar Patch at one point (he could swear that one of the snipers in the nearest tower waved at him, but nothing was for certain). It seemed that keeping to the outer rim would at the very least keep away most of the bad guys, while constantly moving upped the chances that he wouldn't be found. He tried to maintain dim hope that he would be able to find Vic and Alyssa, his best friends and band mates, but the only way to do that would be to risk a cell phone call and he didn't know if it would be right. The ringing could give them away. _Christ, this is insane, you know that right? Running around like a chicken with your head cut off; where the hell are Vic and Alyssa when you need them?_

Stopping behind a large pine tree, the boy reached into his backpack to take a sip of water. A layer of frost had made itself known inside the plastic bottle, but with enough squeezing he could break it up and take a decent drink. _Yeah, they're really smart on this one, cheap plastic water bottles freezing up, what the hell were they thi-_

Jessica's screams cut through the morning air, freezing Eugene in place. He had to run, he knew he had to, it would be easy. He'd done plenty of running before; you don't make it by in high school unless you know how to brawl or run (and he knew how to run). Turning around and running away was his one and only instinct, and the boy planned on indulging it incredibly.

...but on the other hand, he could not help but feel curious as to what was happening. Due to his early release from the bus and his hiding during the early portion of the game, Eugene had been immune to the carnage that had taken place during the Battle Royale. For the most part he viewed this as a good thing (as he was not the one being killed), but as someone who had watched a few past games with curiosity (and a slight sense of fascinated revulsion), part of him did wonder what seeing a real dead body would be like. Not one like on TV or in the instructional video, but a _real_ dead body. Just a glimpse, maybe a gag, maybe a thrill at seeing the taboo, but it was a very real form of terrified excitement all the same. _You know this is stupid, right? Yeah, but you may not get a chance again before this is over (if you make it), why not go out saying you've seen a dead body? Besides, if anything happened there's also a chance that some people had a fight and nothing happened. You could just get yourself on a wild goose chase and have nothing to show for it except some more distance between you and where you last were._

"What the hell," Eugene muttered to himself as he stealthily hiked in the direction of where he heard the scream.

* * *

It took Eugene nearly half an hour to find the farm where the screams had come from (they had stopped nearly twenty minutes before), and by that time Grendel was long gone. This was a good thing as far as Eugene was concerned, because when he saw what the beast had done, he was in no shape to fight or flee effectively. The boy stood stunned at the tree line, staring dully at the macabre scene taking place on the side of the barn, trying to convince himself that he wasn't going mad. _That... that can't be human. Can it? What the hell else could it be? Who would do something like that? Who could do something like that?_

Eugene vomited explosively against a tree, a days worth of horror (and half an MRE) seeming to slip through his mouth in a hot, steaming mess. He tried not to look at what had once been Jessica (though even if he wanted to figure out who it was, he would have had a hard time discerning an identity), but could not shake the image from his mind. Whatever had gotten at the body hanging by its feet had treated it like a freshly killed deer. The stomach area had been carved out cleanly, and as far as Eugene could tell there were no innards remaining. Large portions of the back had been skinned free, and the body's face and scalp had both also been cleanly removed. Both hands had been removed. The snow beneath was stained a rich red (though not nearly as much blood as there should have been existed beneath the corpse), while whoever had attacked the girl had painted a bright red "1" on the barn door in the girls blood.

It was like something out of a nightmare.

By all odds Eugene would have probably continued standing there shaking miserably and tearfully, vomiting once more perhaps. His curiosity circuits had overloaded and shock was beginning to take over. Part of his consciousness was aware of the fact that this was something that no person should ever see, but an even stronger part of his mind feared whoever was capable of doing something like that. _What if they're still here?_

Not wanting to chance that fear coming true, Eugene sprinted back toward town. He reasoned that if this monster wanted to stay out in the sticks, that he'd let them stay in the sticks. He didn't want to find out what the monster would do to someone alive. _At least it can't be any worse than that, right?_

* * *

As Eugene fled across the snow, Grendel watched from the farmhouse's second floor. Beneath its crude mask, the monster smiled an ugly, lipless grin. It could have killed the boy on the ground easily, but that wouldn't have been as much fun. This game would have good hunting, he could feel it.


	17. Hour 8: 46 Contestants Remaining

* * *

**Hour 8**

**46 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

Gillian Stavros, a.k.a. Girl # 10, would have been the first person to admit that she had no clue how the gun she had been assigned worked. If it had been a pistol, maybe even a rifle, the girl had the faintest inclination that she might have been able to get it to point in the right direction and even with a little luck get it to fire. But even the instruction booklet that came with the Heckler & Koch UMP45 Submachine Gun she had been assigned had helped her very little. She got it loaded, she maybe even found the safety, but getting it into a firing sort of mood just didn't seem to be in the cards. Then again, even she had to laugh at how ill-equipped she was in a game like the Battle Royale.

In school Gillian had few friends. With long, curly black hair, light green eyes and soft features that showed off her Greek heritage strongly, she was quite pretty. It would have been easy to get into some of the more superficial circles of popularity, but the girl shunned these. Some might have seen it as an air of haughtiness, others may have interpreted it as her being aloof, but neither was the truth.

Simply put, Gillian was absolutely terrified of losing people. When she was eight, her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Although she fought and fought hard for more than a year, she had succumbed to the cancer. Gillian watched every step of the way as bit by bit the woman who she had looked up to for practically every waking moment of her life fell apart. She was there when her mother's hair fell out from the chemo. Gillian comforted her and stood by her in those times that her father could handle it no more. She would watch her mother throw up while crying, hoping for the best and knowing at the same time she was dying. She had stood by her mother every step of the way, and she hated nearly every minute of it.

It was only when her mother died that Gillian began feeling repulsed by both how she had behaved and death itself. In its own way, defeating death had become her goal in life. She had thrown herself into the clinical study of life, death and how to fight it. Medical school would have been a certainty had she graduated high school, and in the meantime studying and doing volunteer work at the nurse's office had at least put her mind at ease. It wasn't quite the same thing, but it was definitely a step in the right direction. _It was, wasn't it?_

But this... this game. No, it wasn't a game, it was a monstrosity. _It_ was her version of hell. Worse than hell. It was people killing people, death in all its worst forms surrounding her. She had an automatic weapon, something designed to dispense death on a wide scale, and the thought of using it against anyone sickened her. _But that's not making you put it away now is it? You may hate seeing other people die, but more than that you fear your own mortality. That is why you carry it, isn't it?_

No, it didn't stop her, and it wouldn't stop her. She wanted to live. Out of everything to be afraid of in life, the one that terrified Gillian Stavros the most was her own ultimate death.

But that didn't stop her from being curious about the music.

She had wandered for some time throughout the town, flinching and hiding whenever gunfire echoed. No matter how far away it was, she hid and did her best to point the gun out defensively. It always turned out to be nothing, and for that she was thankful. There had been a scary moment about half-past seven in the morning when she had heard a figure running by. She only had a moment's time to avoid Nick McIntyre, a.k.a. Boy # 24, as he ran by with some lengths of pipe hefted on one of his shoulders and a pistol in the other hand. Why he was carrying pipes she did not know, but the gun was more than enough to validate her reasoning for staying in place.

Ducking into the trailer park, the girl had hidden for a brief while, eating a dull breakfast of MRE's with some jelly that she had found in one of the sparse shelves and drinking from a half-frozen bottle of water. After taking some time to rest and to see if there was anything of significance on the TV or radio aside from _Benny the Bunny_ and patriotic country music anthems (there wasn't), the girl set out into the world again.

Having kept making her way from trailer to trailer carefully, the girl felt reasonably confident that staying stealthy would keep her alive. But as she made her way further into the park, the sound of a guitar strumming and a voice singing caught her attention. It didn't sound like one of the patriotic songs on the radio, so either it was someone who had found a working CD player, or someone bold (or stupid) enough to actually be strumming on a guitar and singing. Either way, Gillian approached with caution.

"_...and you tell me, over and over and over again my friend, ah you don't believe, we're on the eve of destruction..."_

The closer she got, the more familiar the voice got. In a matter of minutes, the girl had found the trailer from whence the music came. With her gun held high, the girl peeked through a gap in the window. She could see the boy sitting in place with a guitar cradled in his lap, seemingly unconcerned with what. _You know who it is, why just keep out here wondering what is going on and try to talk to a friendly face?_

She tapped on the window once. The boy on the other side did not respond. She tapped even harder, hoping to rouse his attention from the music. Again, there was no response. _Call out to him or just enter? Calling out will draw attention to you; then again he's doing that with the whole playing music thing isn't he? Just give it a shot. Go in, give it a chance._

Stealthily reaching the door, Gillian silently made her way into the trailer. It was clear that the people who had lived there before were pretty poor. The cheap wallpaper finish had been peeling for some time, most of the furniture was in some state of deterioration, and their bookcase was filled with old, dog-eared copies of TV Guide. The boy with the guitar sat rather calmly on a couch in the living room, seemingly ignoring the rat-chewed holes that surrounded him as he smiled and sang to himself. Under the circumstances it should have been odd to see someone so calm, but with Chad Doerner, a.k.a. Boy # 25, it was best not to be surprised. As someone who no one seemed to know all that well, Gillian had always felt a certain kinship with the boy. However, while she maintained her aloofness as a defense mechanism, his always just seemed to be by nature. Chad looked up at the girl, his strumming stopping as soon as he caught sight of Gillian. The slight smile on his face faltered only a bit, creating a distinct look of resignation across his face.

"Hello Gillian," he said simply.

"Hello Chad," the girl responded in kind.

"So you've come to kill me?" he asked.

"What? No!" Gillian said with bewilderment. Looking sheepishly to the gun in her hands, the girl quickly lowered the weapon.

"It's just for safety-"

"It's all right if you have to do it," Chad interjected with that same painfully resigned look, "it is what we were brought here for after all, isn't it?"

"No, no it isn't," Gillian said defensively, then adding, "well, yes it is why, but it doesn't mean we have to. I came in here because... because I wanted to see where the music was coming from, I didn't want you to be in a position where someone else might hear you."

The last part was a lie, as it seemed both childish and foolish to admit that she just wanted a friendly face. Thankfully he could not read the lie on her face (or at least seemed not to) and continued on.

"If I am going to die, I am going to die, the gods know what they're doing. I honestly hope I don't have to die, but all the same I thank you for your concern. I like my music, it keeps me calm, but I will try to keep it lower. For the warning I thank you. It would have been all too easy for you to come in here with that gun of yours blazing and blow me to bits," Chad said simply.

"I don't want to kill anyone!" Gillian practically shrieked defensively. It seemed for a moment that Chad was going to recoil in fear. Instead a wide smile crossed his face.

"Ah, the old hero debate," Chad said with a knowing air, setting his guitar down on the couch. Gillian caught a quick glance of the pistol sticking from his belt, and was rather comforted that he made no move for it. Chad was always a friendly face, she really hoped he would not be trouble. This however was not what she was expecting.

"Hero debate?" Gillian asked.

"The debate between doing what you are told and doing what is right. That's not to say that heroes don't always do what they are told, but the real hero wants to do what is right no matter what the cost is. You are in a game where people are forced to kill each other for their very lives and yet you don't want to kill. You're in that great debate. Will you or won't you be a hero?" Chad responded. He had a way about him that tended to bring up conversations you never expected or intended to get into. Although she liked him and would have welcomed any friendly face under the circumstances, Gillian still had to admit that she was confused.

"There can't be any heroes here," Gillian said simply, "not in something like this."

"Maybe there can, maybe there can't," Chad simply shrugged, "but I like to think that times like this are when heroes are made."

"How does something like that work?" the girl asked as she eyed the dingy looking easy chair across from the boy. Although it looked twice as moldy, it looked about as comfortable as anything in the room. Keeping the gun in her lap, she sat down.

"Well we are placed right now at the nexus between good and evil aren't we? Don't get me wrong, nothing in life is as simple as black and white, gray does have its place, but in times of strife such as this we are given a choice. There are those who will choose to go along with it for their own reasons, be they malice, glory or sheer survival, and they have cast their lot in the easiest manner possible. But those who choose to defy the system, those who help, those who rebel... ah, now we have something real fun to consider," he said with a smile.

Gillian looked blankly at the boy. She had come for a friendly face, not a discussion on philosophy. It would have been so easy to tune out and simply humor the boy, letting him say what he had to say while all she had to do was pretend to listen and simply enjoy the protection of another person. But... that wasn't easy. Tuning out was hard for Gillian to do when it sounded like someone had a point that might be worth listening to. _Those who help..._

"In times of disaster, terror and oppression you always see people who go against the norm. While everyone runs away from a burning building, they go inside and try to make sure everyone gets out all right. They run out into the field of battle despite great crossfire to apply first aid to the wounded. They fight in our country to this very day against the fascist totalitarian regime that threatens-"

A shrill beep shot from the collar around his neck as a single red light shot on. Chad was startled out of his speech, while Gillian nearly jumped out of her seat. At any second she expected his throat to explode outward and cover her in blood. Instead, the light soon went out, and the beep did not repeat itself. _Just a warning. Crap that could have been bad._

"Well, that should have been expected," Chad said with a nervous laugh, "though I think I should shut up on this particular topic if I wish to remain talking."

But Gillian had heard enough. Though he may have been a bit long in words, there was no denying (in her mind at least) that Chad had a point. _Those who can help, should. You've got the skills, you've got the desire, just go out there and do what you must do..._

"Don't worry about it," she said quickly as she got to her feet, "just stay safe and don't say anything that's going to separate that mind of yours from the rest of you."

Looking to the girl as she began to walk to the door, Chad asked, "Where are you going?"

Gillian said nothing as she made her way to the door with her submachine gun held high. She didn't need to. Chad would be all right on his own, but there would be plenty more people out there needing medical attention, the hurt, the wounded, and Gillian knew that she could help them. The thought that comforted Gillian and kept her warm as she stepped back out into the world was that she was going to be a hero.

* * *

Alan Wiles, a.k.a. Boy # 15, needed no one to tell him how to be a hero. To him it more or less came naturally. More than six and a half feet tall and rather muscular, the African-American boy was quite handsome and very powerful, having made a name for himself in Amberlaine High School as a star on the basketball team. Though a fierce competitor on the court, he was popular for his generally good nature and his devotion to friends. The fact that he was rather good looking never seemed to hurt either, as he had also gained something of a reputation as a ladies man. Although his grades weren't the greatest in the world, he tried hard and always had the distinct belief that if he tried hard enough and perhaps got a half-decent sport scholarship, he could be the first member of his family to go to college. In his senior year he was maintaining a respectable 2.89 GPA, and if he kept his studies up... who knew where he could go?

But in the Battle Royale, everything changed. He was removed from the majority of his friends and allies, and his skill on the basketball court no longer mattered. In a really bizarre way Alan felt slightly glad about this, as now he would be able to get by on who he really was and what he really wanted. In the Battle Royale, he had every intention of being a hero.

As the morning wore on and the shock of being in the game had gone away, Alan did his best to figure out what he was going to do. Suicide was out of the question. Despite the Spas-12 shotgun that he had been assigned, going on a murderous rampage was even further from his mind. To Alan, his classmates were not just friends; they were family. _If mama always told you something, it's that family is always first. You may have had a hard time in The D, but family got you through. She always said you can always be better if you remember family, and you don't want to forget that..._

Life had never been easy for the boy. Having grown up on the mean streets of Detroit in about as bad a neighborhood as he could have imagined, life was more a matter of survival than of living. He had made it past the drugs, he had made it past the gangs, and made it through with few physical scars to show for it. It was bad for a long time, and he'd had more than a few friends wind up either behind bars or six feet under. It hurt every time, but it had seemed to be a fact of life. People come, people go, that's all the street had ever taught him.

But when his mother had gotten her degree and enough money to move them out, things began to change very quickly. All of a sudden he found that he could make friends that would last, people who knew little of violence except for what they saw on TV (which admittedly was quite a lot these days), and that you could change your life. It was hard, and you had to work every step of the way, but not every day had to be like the one before it. With friends, no, _family_ like he had met in Amberlaine, everything finally began to make sense. It seemed like everything could finally work itself out.

Killing people was out of the question (unless they were bad guys), but if he could save a few people, maybe find his way in with some people who could figure things out... then maybe it would all be worth it. Maybe things would actually work out. _Save one person, and maybe you save yourself. That is the idea, isn't it?_

He had been walking through the forest when he heard the screams. Unlike the boy who first followed the screams, Alan went not out of morbid curiosity. Rather, he hoped beyond all hope that the screams would not stop. He hoped that the girl who was screaming was still alive, and that he could get there in time to save her. _She's probably dead, ain't she? Probably, yeah, but not definitely. Nothing's definite until you see it with your own eyes. Just keep going, just keep on and see if she's all right. If you can't get to her all right... well, know you did what you could. If whoever did it is there... there is more than one way of being a hero, right?_

* * *

Alan didn't get sick when he saw the remains of Jessica Tyler, a.k.a. Girl # 21. He just felt sad. In the entire trek out to the farmhouse at which she had been killed, he had maintained a sense of hopeful optimism. The longer it took to get there, the more hope he had that somehow the girl would still be alive, maybe having made her escape some time earlier. Seeing her remains splayed out like that from a rope, looking like some mad hunter or lynch mob had carved her up, Alan began to feel helpless. _If you'd been a bit faster... well, she'd still probably be dead, wouldn't she? You were a long ways away. You walked for a long time. You couldn't have saved her. Not that great at the hero thing now are y-_

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. Something in the air just made him feel as if he were being watched. He could get out, maybe he had to get out, but he had a distinct feeling that things were already too late. He didn't know how exactly he knew, but it was a gut instinct that he chose not to ignore. With only seconds to spare, the boy quickly ducked back into the tree line.

It was the sheer virtue that he had ducked behind a tree that saved Alan's life. An arrow fired from around the edge of the farmhouse struck the tree with such force that it threatened to pierce all the way through to Alan's flesh. Thankfully, it held strong. Taking a chance to look around, the boy could see the masked form of his attacker as it restrung another arrow. He had no doubt that the giant in the crude mask and the blood-stained overalls was the beast that had slain Jessica. Though he would never admit it aloud, the boy was glad that this creature did not appear to be one of his classmates. It was easier to get this angry at a blank. It was easier to think about the gun in his hands if the attacker was a blank. It was easier to pump the slide if the monster was a blank. _Should make this next bit easy now shouldn't it?_

Swinging his body around the tree, Alan braced the Spas-12 against his shoulder and quickly aimed it at his attacker. The beast had nearly strung up another arrow, and Alan knew he had to strike fast. He fired. Having never shot a weapon in his entire life (something Alan had become rather grateful for all things considered), he could not manage a decent kill shot with the weapon. Instead it blew out a large chunk of the aged farmhouse that the monster stood next to, showering it with debris and bits of snow.

Alan had expected something of a startled reaction, maybe with the monster dropping its weapon and turning tail against someone with clearly superior firearms. Instead it still worked at stringing up its arrow, launching it with startling power in Alan's direction. Once again the boy ducked behind his tree, and once again the arrow missed him. _Tree's not big man, and this guy's as big as they get. He's gonna get a shot off at you sooner or later and you're gonna wind up like the poor girl on the rope there. You can run and call it all even here, just get out, or you can charge this motherfucker and show him what you're made of. Blow his ass to kingdom come and make sure he don't make anyone else like that girl there._

Not giving the monster a chance to string another arrow, Alan charged through the snow toward the house, firing shot after shot in the direction of the creature. Although he mostly hit the house and blew up swaths of snow, a couple did find their correct path. A scattering of pellets streaked blood across the monster's left shoulder, causing it to drop the bow and arrow into the snow. Another blast Alan was certain had gotten the creature in the head (_why did it go clang?_) as it had jerked its neck back hard. With a greater amount of distance closed between the two of them, Alan was afforded greater accuracy. He could now see the creature clearer than ever before with its ugly, semi-tattered hood (_definitely hit it, why's there no blood?_) and bloodstained overalls covering a long-sleeved denim shirt. He did not want to even know what crude artifacts filled the beast's belt, nor did it matter. He was going to kill the monster.

At nearly point blank range, Alan fired into the creatures chest. It stumbled backward horribly, its tremendous weight swaying as it tried to regain footing. Pumping the slide, Alan fired another shot into the creature's gut, this time blowing it flat onto its giant back as snow flew every which way. Aiming the gun at the now downed creature's head, Alan pulled the trigger.

Empty.

The click of the now empty shotgun seemed to startle Alan more than the flayed corpse strung up near the house, but as he let his heart calm from the battle, little seemed to matter. The monster was down, and it was not moving. _It's dead._

"He's dead," Alan said with disbelieving pride to himself, "I killed him. I killed him!"

Pointing angrily to the beast who had murdered Jessica with the shotgun and crying out with pride, Alan shrieked, "FUUUUUUCK YOU!"

Terrified, relieved laughter coursed through his system as he looked upon the downed Grendel. Although he didn't know it, Alan had just repeatedly shot one of the deadliest competitors in Battle Royale history. He laughed miserably, not letting the giggling take him over as he held his chest and tried to maintain himself. Alan looked to the downed creature, getting his senses about him and began to consider reloading his shotgun.

It was as he reached for his backpack that Alan saw Grendel sit up, reaching around to its back and withdrawing a double-headed woodsman's ax with startling speed. Alan stood by in muted shock, watching as the monster twisted the ax into a usable position and swung hard. It was only his athletic training that spared his life, as Alan was able to dart backwards in time to dodge the ax. The monster continued to swing the ax from a sitting position, and scared out of his mind Alan could think of only one possible course of action.

He ran.

Sprinting as fast as his long legs could take him through the snow, the boy never once looked back. He did not know how it was possible for the beast to still be standing after surviving four blasts from one of the most powerful shotguns on the planet, nor did he want to know. All he knew was that it was still alive, it was belligerent, and there was every chance that it was following him. Feeling that he had a better chance of surviving in town, Alan Wiles remorsefully and fearfully retreated from the forest.

_Some hero you are._

* * *

Grendel took its time in standing up. The vest it had been provided with as a part of the contract for taking part in the game had absorbed the lethality of the blows, so that much wasn't a problem. They hurt, but they weren't bad. Grendel had learned how to deal with pain for some time.

Another denim shirt would have to be found of course, but that wasn't impossible, even with its size. Even finding the boy who had attempted to attack it wouldn't be all that difficult.

That was the great part about a game taking place in the snow: no matter how hard people tried, they always led you right to them.

* * *

The church was beginning to fill out rather well, and as the numbers began to increase, a semblance of order was beginning to form. People had jobs, some of them on guard duty, others barricading the doors and windows, and things were beginning to make sense again. Though many had doubts in their leader, he seemed very capable under the circumstances and knew how to choose his lieutenants well. As far as everyone was concerned, Sophia Apollinar, a.k.a. Girl # 6, was more or less running the show at the moment. Ever since the whole incident with Rich, Isaac Freemantle, a.k.a. Boy # 17, had barricaded himself in the church's backroom.

More than anything else, this made Julie Hewitt, a.k.a. Girl # 19, anxious. Something was clearly happening. Longer and longer Sophia would join Isaac in the church's back room, discussing God only knew what. It didn't take a rocket scientist as far as Julie was concerned to realize that something big was going down. It was Isaac, something big was of course inevitable, but this time... the tension was palpable. Everyone was nervous, everyone was waiting for some word, something that would set things off, set them on the way they were going to go-

A hand grasped Julie softly by the shoulder, and the girl turned around in time to look up into the intelligent eyes of Isaac Freemantle.

"Isaac!" she yelped in surprise.

"Hey Jules, can I borrow you for a few minutes? I need to show you something important," he said quickly and calmly, but with enough authority in his voice to make it sound like an order. Lost in his eyes, Julie could only nod yes. _Quit it girl, this is not the time or the place to be getting all googly-eyed about your new wannabe prince charming. You've kept this all business before, try to keep it such this time._

As the pair walked into the church's back room, Julie quickly caught the gaze of her ex-boyfriend Glen Counihan, a.k.a. Boy # 2. His glare was disapproving, and she shrugged it off. Glen had never really liked Isaac. There was once a time when she had tried to convince him that Isaac really had good intentions, but that never really seemed to make an impact. _Some people just can't seem to see the truth even when it is right in front of their eyes. When Isaac gets us out of here, he'll be singing a different tune all right..._

The church's back room was small and mostly filled with old, half-rotten cardboard boxes and extra wooden chairs. Sophia sat on edge on top of an old, broken-down piano, rocking back and forth slightly as though she were extremely nervous. Isaac closed the door behind them and locked it.

"What's happening?" Julie asked.

"Something is going down," Isaac said as he calmly grabbed one of the extra chairs and made his way to the corner of the room. Above a collection of cardboard boxes was a camera array fashioned against the ceiling's corner, and Isaac quickly covered it up with the chair. Julie half-expected Isaac's collar to start beeping, maybe starting a chain reaction explosion that would kill them all. Instead, he was able to cross back to the middle of the room, whereupon Sophia got off the piano and joined him. The girl pulled a folded up piece of paper from her pocket. It was an old church tract by the looks of things, a document on which the girl had clearly scrawled in her red pen a bright, large note.

'STAY QUIET, THIS IS SHOW AND TELL, LET ISAAC SHOW, THEN LET HIM TELL. IF YOU TALK, DON'T REVEAL A THING'

Turning to Isaac, Julie fixed him with a questioning glare. The boy smiled with some hesitance, but mostly some excitement. He produced in his right hand a small device about the size of a portable video game system, with a large digital screen and a few rows of buttons beneath.

"You see this, right?" Isaac asked.

"Yeah, what is it?" Julie responded.

"Very, very cool," Isaac replied with a wider smile. Pressing a button on the side of the device, the boy made the screen come to life. A digital map of the town appeared in great detail, red dots swarming all over it as though covering it with a rash. It took her a few moments to realize that the red dots were all the contestants of the game. Isaac then pressed another button, the map replaced by a list of contestants. Those who had been killed were blocked out in bright red.

Holding his other hand out, Isaac produced a note he had written on another tract.

'IT SEEMS WE HAVE A FRIEND OUTSIDE. THIS WAS IN MY PACK AND IS NOT MY WEAPON. IT SHOWS AN ENTIRE MAP OF THE AREA, INCLUDING SEVERAL TUNNELS OUT OF HERE. ALSO COLLAR INFO. SOMEONE WROTE THIS ON THE BACK OF IT'

He flipped the device around to show what had clearly been written on the back with a magic marker. The words clearly stated, 'You say you want a revolution?'

"Sound good to you?" Isaac asked.

"You're sure about this?" Julie asked suspiciously.

"Why shouldn't I be?" Isaac said calmly.

"I don't know, but this does seem a bit suspicious, doesn't it?" Julie said.

"Maybe it does, but maybe it doesn't. This is amazingly important, and the fact that it is what it is taints all who see it with hope, and I just don't see them doing that. I have to believe in the friend," Isaac said very methodically, choosing his words so as to not arouse _too_ much suspicion at the very least.

"Then why keep this on the downlow? Why show just us?" Julie asked. She did not want to be attacking Isaac, but she did want to make sure that this was foolproof as it sounded. Although part of her was admittedly suspicious in the matter, an even greater part of her found hope. _He's going to do this, isn't he? He actually has a plan and he actually has an in, and if we really have a friend on the other end? Then we're set, oh yeah, we may actually have a way out of this._

"Two reasons: First, the others would start blabbing about it, and frankly that's about as stupid an idea as they come, isn't it? Secondly... I could keep this to myself, but we need them to have hope. If they don't have hope, they won't help me work toward what has to happen, and when we are all working together we can accomplish this. If you two, two people I can trust, know about this, you can keep the hope up. You can know that this will work, you can tell people that things are going to be fine, and they will trust you better than they will trust me alone. I... we need trust for this to work," Isaac said ultimately. Julie could see that this was not easy for him to say; he chose every word meticulously and was wringing his hands nervously. Whether it was good nervous energy or bad nervous energy, Julie didn't know. She didn't really want to know the more she thought about it.

But there was salvation. She had seen it. If Isaac was right that it showed paths out and had information on the collars...

"This could work," Julie said, "this really could work, couldn't it?"

"Yeah, it could," Isaac said.

"Then let's start calling people up, let's start getting people together, get a lot of people together and-"

"One step at a time," Sophia interjected, "we gotta make sure first that we've got everything lined up before we start gathering the masses, but after that... yeah, we're golden."

"So I must ask you for the sake of the cause, are you in, or are you out?" Isaac asked.

The question gave Julie a flash to that time just a few weeks earlier when Isaac had come to her about setting up the protest. Though he had kept her out of his inner circle, he had asked for her help in organizing things all the same. He had asked, and she had not denied him. _Admit it, you could never deny him, could you?_

"Of course I'm in."


	18. Behind The Scenes: Hour 8

* * *

**Behind the Scenes:**

**Hour 8**

* * *

The mood in The Pit was tense, but enthusiastic all the same. It was still early in the game, and despite a few problems that seemed to go with every game everything was running like clockwork. The Dirty Dozen ran the game and broadcast like a well oiled machine, their months of training and drilling with one another creating a program that from a technological standpoint at the very least was perfect. This proficiency did not necessarily equate to superior conversation however.

"Think she's a natural redhead?" Technician Raimi asked idly as he focused a camera on Amanda Marquette, a.k.a. Girl # 18. The youngest of all the technicians in the Dirty Dozen, he was something of a joke among the others for the way his buggy eyes would never seem to stay in one place. However, since the game had started he had brought even more laughter from his fellow techs. His eyes would now stay focused, but only when he would switch the cameras over to Amanda.

"Probably man, looks pretty real don't she?" Technician Kaplan responded without taking his eyes from his monitor. The young man was doing his best to focus in on the crew in the church (prime duty among the camera techs at the moment, something he felt very proud for), but became frustrated quickly. The chair that Isaac Freemantle, a.k.a. Boy # 17, had put in front of the camera removed some great angles. _Not like it'll do him a lot of good now, eyes are everywhere and he couldn't hide it forever. Poor bastard, probably doesn't know what kind of grief that's going to get him._

"I dunno man, looks too red ya know? Body like that, it looks like she might just be trying to stand out from the other blondes with even bigger titties, lookin' at her I just don't buy it," Technician Dinh responded rather harshly.

"Man I hope it's real," Raimi said almost airily.

"Why? Not like you're going to have a chance with her is it?" Technician Beck asked from over Raimi's shoulder.

"Hey, she could win, you never know man!" Raimi continued.

"She could win?" Kaplan continued.

"Yeah," Raimi shot back.

"She could win?" Kaplan asked again disbelievingly.

"Yeah, she could," Raimi said again.

"In a game where we've got people like Luczak, McIntyre, Cilek and Bourne, not to mention Scylla and fucking Grendel, you think a girl who hasn't done jack shit in the game, isn't all that strong looking can win just 'cause you got a boner for redheads with big tits?" Kaplan continued with further disbelief. It wasn't that he didn't like Raimi, but the ignorance of the young technician did get rather grating.

"Of course, why not man? This is a Battle Royale, anyone could win!" Raimi responded defensively.

"Yeah, but just because anyone can win doesn't mean anyone will win," Beck added, "let's face it, you do still have to know how to play the game and actually play it."

"What about Lucian Crúz?" Raimi said with a distinct sense of satisfaction. To this no one could bring up any valid arguments. Lucian Crúz, winner of the Florida season, had won his game mostly through a combination of cowardice and pure, dumb luck. Hiding out the entire game, he managed to avoid all of the game's hunters without once getting into a firefight. Once the danger zones herded everyone to the center at the end of the game, he simply waited until there was one person remaining and just shot them in the back. He had won a Battle Royale by only firing one bullet, and had thusly been seen as the worst winner the game had ever manufactured. If it were up to the big wigs, they would have disowned his existence.

"Lucian Crúz was a pussy," Technician Simpson interjected.

"Hear hear," one of the military technicians said from across the room.

"Hey come on guys, God knows I love the conversation but keep your eyes on the prize," Technician Berryman said with a wave of the hand. He had been on edge with the discovery that Isaac had been provided with a tracking device, mostly because The Brit didn't seem to be on edge. Calm and confident despite the potentially devastating nature of this information, The Brit had disappeared into an emergency meeting with Kinsey and not reappeared for almost an hour. Things were getting bad, but with a program where as many things could go wrong, things were always bad.

Thankfully, the men quickly went back to their work.

"Well, ask Charon if the carpets match the drapes when he gets off duty, he always knows that shit," Kaplan whispered to Raimi.

"You could try but I doubt it," Dinh whispered back quickly, "they actually did manage to keep the processing parties to a minimum this go around."

"Ah well, thanks for the thought at least," Raimi said with a shrug. Letting the tension of the room disappear around him, the young technician went back to watching the girl he had become quite smitten by. Sure, the odds did highly favor that she would die, but he could always hope, couldn't he? _Man, she is hot. The casting people really did a number this time around, let me tell you..._

Changing to another camera in an effort to double check the progress of Calvin Spencer, a.k.a. Boy # 11, whom he had also been assigned to watch, Raimi cursed his computer as it slowed to a crawl. Despite having an almost endless budget, their servers still managed to get overloaded and overloaded fast when there were too many people to monitor.

"Piece of shit," Raimi said with frustration as he pounded the side of his flat-screen monitor. Although the impact did nothing to make the view screens change over any faster, something appeared onscreen that did manage to grab his attention. It was a logo like any other for a video feed into the game, but at last check he'd only had two open. The names of the other view feeds were those of camera designations, but this one had another word printed underneath it:

CUCKOO

Without even thinking, the boy clicked on the link. It was a reflex really, people would send over video streams all the time when they were going on break, but in the back of his mind he knew the name of the feed should have bugged him. Had he been thinking, he would have recognized it as the name of a bird and reported it immediately. Instead, he watched the video stream that was brought up.

The picture that came onscreen shocked the young technician so much that he could only utter two words.

"Oh shit."

* * *

It seemed incongruous to many how restrained Col. Morton Kinsey was when angered. A tall man with a physique that seemed to defy his sixty-two years, he was an imposing figure with his steely eyes and thin white mustache. He had a way about him where when he got angry, he did not need to raise his voice more than was necessary as his eyes were capable of doing the rest. All the same, that didn't seem to help the ulcer that he had been fighting for some time, and the events of the past eight hours hadn't made it any better. Even though his office looked rather warm and lived-in with wood paneling and pictures of his wife and teenaged daughter, it felt rather cold to those who had been brought in for the emergency meeting.

"How in the hell did they get a tracking device into the game?" Kinsey asked as he sipped on his seltzer water with a wince.

"We're not sure sir," his second in command, Maj. Linus Hastings responded. A shorter, stockier man with a cruel-looking face gained during his time as warden over the Bunazca desert prison, his eyes showed a distinct amount of hesitation. It was never a good idea to get Kinsey mad.

"It was probably an inside job," Hastings continued.

"Probably? PROBABLY!" Kinsey shouted. He then closed his eyes, counting briefly to himself in an effort to calm down.

"I want whoever it is to be found, and I want them to be debriefed as vigorously as humanly possible, and I want them to be hung up by their scrawny fucking neck before this day is out. Do you understand me?" the colonel asked with restraint.

"Of course sir, it's just that there are a lot of places it could have come from. We haven't gotten a good look at the tracker so we don't know if it's military grade or simply civilian, which means it could have come from anywhere. The backpacks were put together at the Situs building and they were wrapped until they were on the bus; if it was going to happen anywhere, it would be there," Hastings said quickly.

"Find them," Kinsey said emphatically, "and deal with Freemantle."

"I would sincerely recommend against that Colonel," Sir Banastare Tarleton advised from his plush chair.

"You would now?" Kinsey asked.

"I would. Might I have the chance to explain why that would be best?" Tarleton continued.

Kinsey would have liked nothing better than to simply shoot down The Brit's suggestion and get on with the game sans one Mr. Isaac Freemantle. However, being a man who appreciated a good show as much as he appreciated a distinct level of practicality to his game, he shrugged his shoulders and decided to listen.

"Enlighten us," Kinsey said simply.

"At the moment the best he can accomplish is, what, a gathering if I am not mistaken? Mr. Freemantle and his friends, well, more associates really, he's not the most sociable of chaps is he? Well, as I was saying, right now Mr. Freemantle and his associates are in the church, which is about as far away from any practical escape location as any, am I correct?" Tarleton asked.

"That is correct," Hastings said, "he would have to cross through the rest of the town."

"Yes, and until then he poses no real threat to the game, does he?" Tarleton proposed.

"He's a poison," Hastings interjected, looking to Kinsey for permission and getting a nod, "if he tells everyone else about the escape routes, they will all know, and then it is not just a matter of one angry young black kid, it's going to be a whole army of them. Otis Shylock has been dangerous enough from a public relations standpoint, what would an army of escapees do to public morale. We can't shut this one up, not with the whole world watching."

"We decide what they watch," Tarleton said, "they do not have to know what we don't want them to know. The cameras go down, we regrettably set off some belts, well, we're on collars now aren't we, and that is it really, is it not? Besides, if I recall correctly you were able to shut that little mass breakout from Bunazca rather effectively out of the public eye, were you not?"

Major Hastings flushed about the face as he tried to hold back his anger. It was a sore point that he tried not to talk about, as he had been the reigning warden when 46 prisoners had simply disappeared. They had never discovered how they escaped, and with the exception of a few who were slower than the rest, none had been recaptured. There were rumors that Hastings had only escaped the noose because of his close friendship with Kinsey, but no one would confirm anything. To taunt him about the escape was one of the easiest ways to unsettle the officer.

"Cool it Tarleton," Kinsey said angrily.

"Sorry, I was simply illustrating a point," The Brit said simply, "but I will wrap this up rather quickly all the same."

"See that you do," Hastings responded. It was clear that he was trying as hard as he could not to simply throttle Tarleton.

"All I am saying is that destroying someone with as magnetic a personality, or at the very least agenda, as Isaac Freemantle would be a very stupid idea. The greatest of massacres in this game's great history have happened among large groups, and by the looks of things he is going to gather as many people as possible. There remains the distinct possibility that one or more of the people he gathers together may be unstable and could initiate a bloodbath. Or say that that does not work, we have more creative means of dealing with a problem than simply blowing him up on camera. It will be all too easy to initiate Project Phalanx and-"

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

* * *

Kinsey, Hastings and Tarleton burst into The Pit with mixed looks of grim determination crossing all of their faces. Although Kinsey held authority over the entire project, it was Tarleton who talked the first, the fastest, and with the greatest anger.

"When did the breach occur?" Tarleton said quickly. His face would neither allow for a yell or a full grimace, but the fear of god had been instilled into the room rather effectively.

"About ten minutes ago sir," Berryman said. The middle-aged technician was as white as a sheet with sweat running heavily down his face. He looked as if he were on the verge of death. Having seen the hanging of Donovan over The Doug Rodgers Affair, he had every reason to be looking as white as a sheet. This was much, much worse.

"Ten minutes, why didn't you get to us sooner?" Tarleton practically roared.

"We were trying to make sure that this was isolated in the system, to see if we could cut off any attempt at a continued breach. As far as we can tell they just implanted the video file in the system and left it," Berryman replied quickly.

"But they got in once already, there's no saying that they can't get in again," Tarleton replied quickly.

"Can we cut off outside lines for now and try to find the door they used?" Hastings asked.

"No, they seem to be piggybacking off of one of the broadcast lines, if we want to cut them off, we have to cut off the broadcast," Berryman quickly responded.

"Who found the intrusion?" Kinsey asked simply. Berryman quickly pointed to Raimi. The young technician sat with a look of terror on his face, actually shaking in his chair as the colonel approached him.

"How did you find the intrusion?" Kinsey continued.

Raimi took a long time starting, the syllables and sounds jumbling up in his mouth before they all stumbled out in one frightened rush.

"I was just getting back to my station after conferring with some of my co-workers over a matter of cameras and found a video stream that I had not recalled opening. It was stupid, stupid, stupid, I opened it on an instinct, I saw that it had a name I didn't recognize but I opened it anyway and then the video popped up onscreen, I am so sorry sir, I know I messed up, but I am so sorry, please, please, I am so sorry," Raimi said rapidly as tears began to fill the corners of his eyes. The other technicians looked on warily from their workstations, trying to continue with their tasks while at the same time unable to take their eyes away from what was going on. Moreover, what would likely go on.

"Yeah, you did fuck up pretty bad, didn't you?" Kinsey asked with something of a laugh. This odd bit of levity under the circumstances threw Raimi for a loop, but it caused him to smile all the same. Anything was better than Kinsey exploding under the circumstances.

"But it could be worse," Kinsey said as he put his right hand in his pocket. He smiled that warm smile that he would often give when addressing his men, the paternal grin that said everything was going to be all right.

"It could be a lot worse," Kinsey continued as he looked down at the scared technician, "but I want you to know one thing that will make you feel better."

"Yes sir?" Raimi asked, his buggy eyes looking hopeful for perhaps the first time since he had clicked on the CUCKOO button. The look hardly left him as Kinsey rapidly withdrew the retractable baton from his pocket, quickly extending the weapon and slamming it into the base of Raimi's throat. The young technician's eyes seemed to try to leap from his head as he crumpled in his chair, gasping for air that was not making it to his lungs and clawing at the collar of his shirt. He struggled for maybe a minute in his chair as all the other technicians in The Pit watched in horror, but soon he fell still. Kinsey put the baton into his pocket quite calmly and looked up to the rest of the men.

"You'll set an example," the colonel said softly, then speaking up, "I am a merciful and understanding man, you all know that, but such blind ignorance as this can only be punished in the most severe manner possible. Clyde Raimi was a good man, but that does not excuse him from his duties. You all know that as soon as you identify something you do not recognize that you must introduce it to the chain of command. Our system has been breached, but by clicking the link he did, Raimi might have made things much worse. Even more, it may be willful collaboration with the enemy. Raimi's error was not worth the public humiliation of a hanging, but let it be a warning to the rest of you, civilian and military alike, to be on your guard."

He looked up to Berryman with a critical eye, "You could have prevented this. You are on notice, understand?"

Berryman could only nod furiously, glad for the reprieve. The colonel then turned his attention to Hastings.

"Get some men, take Raimi here to the morgue," Kinsey said simply. Hastings nodded obediently, quickly running from the room. The colonel then moved to the nearest technician, a spiky-haired redhead from Louisiana by the name of Woxan.

"Get the feed up onscreen, I want to see what we are dealing with," Kinsey said. As the technician did what he was told, the colonel tried not to worry about what was going down. The Isaac Freemantle situation seemed to pale in comparison to a genuine terrorist infiltration of the network. If they could get into the computers, they could get into the government network. If they could get into the government network... they could wreak some real havoc. It pained Kinsey to have to do away with such as talented a technician as Raimi, but it had to be done. The military technicians would have to pick up the slack, and the fear of death would keep everyone else in line. The only person not to get flustered in the slightest over the situation was Sir Banastare Tarleton. Kinsey didn't know whether he should be impressed or unnerved by that observation, but felt that for the moment at least it was best not to focus on.

The video from The Raptors was beginning.

* * *

**Transcript of the first video received from terrorist group designated "The Raptors" during The Eighth Annual United States Battle Royale**

* * *

(Five figures stand before an upside-down American Flag wearing military fatigues. Each wears a black hood that obscures their face and a bright red armband. FBI analysts have identified the members from left to right as terrorists codenamed, Pelican, Bald Eagle, The Owl, and Sparrow. Due to the large frame of the fifth member, its identity has been narrowed to being either that of Cuckoo or Quetzal. Only The Owl speaks in a voice with heavy electronic distortion.)

THE OWL: We are The Raptors. Time and time again we have warned you dogs behind the evil American empire to stop your actions and follow the righteous path from whence we came. Time and again you have ignored us, and we have had to act. We do not like to kill the innocent, we do not like to destroy, but we will do what we must until there has been action. We have hacked into your Battle Royale, and we will hijack it if we must. End the game, end it now. Let your prisoners go. If you do not, we will unleash a reign of terror on this country the likes of which have never been seen before. If you do not end this game, by the end of it you will be forced to bow down before us.

(Video cuts to shaky footage of a large office complex, The Situs Corporation in Detroit, Michigan.)

THE OWL (VO): We can strike at any time. We can strike anywhere. Although this voice is not live...

(A gloved hand brings a copy of _The Detroit News_ up into the camera's viewpoint to show the date to be the current date; December 22, 2007.)

THE OWL (VO): ...what you see is.

(The hand drops the newspaper to the side. A massive explosion rocks the ground floor of the building, sending fire and debris every which way. The camera's view grows shaky as the person holding it rocks about on their feet. Panning back up, all that can be seen is fire and debris. Some people begin running from the building, screaming and nursing wounds. The cameraman begins running away, focusing on the destruction as one entire wing of the building collapses. People who had begun to run from the building are immediately swallowed up by the cloud of dust and debris. Some are flung through the air, others are crushed by chunks of debris. Moments later, the cloud of dust envelops the cameraman, and the footage disappears into static.)

(The video cuts back to The Raptors standing in front of the camera.)

THE OWL: If you wish to save lives instead of taking more, end this game now. If you do not, we will continue to launch attacks as you have just seen. You have witnessed our power, do not make us continue to exercise it. This is our last warning. If you do not heed our demands, you will find out about our next acts from the news. We are The Raptors. We will not give up.

(Video goes into static.)

* * *

The Pit fell deathly silent as the footage of the attack echoed through the personnel watching it. No one, not even Tarleton or Kinsey, dared to speak. The fire, the people screaming, the rampant destruction, it was all too much. Ultimately, Kinsey did speak. He had to.

"This is live?" the colonel asked.

"N-n-no sir," Woxan said fearfully as he looked to the now blank monitor, "it's a few minutes old."

"That's live enough," Kinsey said. The colonel eyed the large screen with a distinct look of contemplation on his face. Rubbing a hand over his chin, Kinsey now had the appearance of a strong leader that his men had always looked up to. Things were about as bad as they could get, and he had to be at his best. But practical issues did still have priority. _Thornton's going to want to hear about this one from the source... if he hasn't already._

"I have to go make a call."


	19. Hour 9: 46 Contestants Remaining

* * *

**Hour 9**

**46 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

There was a time when Rich Miller, a.k.a. Boy # 1, could have been called handsome. Tall and blonde, the boy had always taken very meticulous care of himself and liked to impress. He always kept in good shape, ate right and used just enough products to make himself look good without looking like he spent three hours in front of a mirror. He came from a family with money, and could have gotten through life without doing much of anything if he really wanted to. Popular and respected with friends in all the right places, he should have done rather well for himself in the long run.

If you were to see him in the Battle Royale, you would be unable to recognize him. Aside from the slash to the nose and the bruises that now covered his body, the weeks preceding the game had been unkind to the boy. Dark bags could be found beneath his eyes, he had lost nearly ten pounds from stress and had streaks of gray appear in his hair. He was prone to jumping at small noises and was easy to break. The boy could hardly stand up sometimes it seemed. He was a mess.

As well, he was a traitor.

Ever since the incident in the church, he had run wildly and without direction throughout Grover's Mill. He cried out in fear and would dive wildly to the ground whenever he heard a gunshot or scream. Occasionally he would see someone running by in town, and then he would do his best to keep quiet and get down. With the flow of blood from the handkerchief in his nose more or less staunched (and beginning to freeze, though he did not know this), he now had to deal with the constant dull pain that emanated from it. If he didn't do anything about it soon, infection was a definite possibility.

But the first thing he vowed was that he needed to get away from other people. People had weapons, and they would hurt him. Hell, they would try to kill him. He had to make it to the sticks, make it out of town and figure out what to do once he got there. There was safety in the forest, or so he reckoned. He had practically run from tree to tree, hiding, making sure that no one was after him, and it had worked. He saw no one, he ran into no hunters, and was terrified beyond all explanation.

Out of breath and in immense pain, the boy collapsed next to a tree. With one hand holding the half-frozen and bloodstained handkerchief to his nose and the other holding his pistol, the boy tried not to cry. He had done everything right, everything that any responsible citizen should do. Not in the beginning of course, then he had been... confused. He was weak, even for the briefest of moments. But he had found the way back to the proper path, and he had done the right thing. _So why so nervous? You did the right thing, you were good, but you still doomed them all didn't you? But they doomed themselves. They did this to themselves, they brought this upon themselves, and you helped them. You helped them, but then you were good. You did what was right?_

"But why am I here?" he sobbed aloud. Everything hurt, everything was wrong. He was good, but then he was still put in the game. He was strong, but he was falling apart. He had been kidnapped (first by his government and then by the people who he once called friends), beaten to within an inch of his life, and then mutilated. The bleeding stopped after a while, but he looked grisly. He would never look right again, but then again the odds didn't really favor living much longer anyway, did they? And worst of all, everything hurt. _Living_ hurt.

But there was the gun.

The revolutionaries hiding in the church had robbed him of all his possessions save the Walther P99 pistol he held in his hand. But it was not for protection, nor was it for taking part in the game. They had no intention of helping Rich after what he had done to them. No, Isaac Freemantle, a.k.a. Boy # 17, had been very clear about that. The gun they had let him keep was solely for the purpose of killing himself. More than anything else in life the boy had been terrified of pain, of death, but here... here it was sounding pretty good.

Trying to keep back the tears, Rich began to raise the pistol. Almost as quickly he threw it back down to his side. "Just stop it!" he practically shouted.

_No, you can do this. Just give it a shot, you can do it._

Raising it to the side of his head, Rich soon threw it down to his side again. A coward. That was what he was. A coward afraid of pulling a trigger and doing what would be easiest. Staying around would be hard, staying alive would hurt. That's all the reason to end it, right? Quickly, he raised the pistol up and put it beneath his chin. _It'll be easy. One shot, if you get it right it shouldn't even hurt, right? People do this all the time, you can do it man. But wouldn't that mean Isaac was right? You were right, you did what was right. But you're still here. Christ man, how'd you get into this mess?_

* * *

Rich Miller lived in one of the nicest houses in Amberlaine. Having a father who was a prominent lawyer had its perks, and he enjoyed the good life immensely. It was early fall (school had just begun), and Isaac Freemantle was over. They had been kicking back in a series of deck chairs drinking lemonade, debating whether or not to give the pool one more shot before the season got too cold. But Rich was nervous. Drinking lemonade in the backyard with Isaac had never been that strange, but what he was saying... it was, well, madness.

Madness. It had to be. Rich had always known Isaac to be one of the most levelheaded and intelligent people in school. Had been since middle school. Hell, sometimes it was scary how smart and level he was. There were times when Rich had even wondered whether or not the other boy was a sociopath. However, what he was saying, what he was proposing... it was insanity. It had to be. A slip up maybe, a moment's weakness, maybe the beginning of a serious psychotic episode perhaps, but it couldn't mean what he was saying. He just couldn't.

"So you're telling me that you want to set up a major, violent protest against the government, and you want me to help you?" Rich asked with complete confusion.

"Essentially, yes," Isaac said simply, "but there is more to it than that if you want to hear me out."

"No, no way man, no fucking way!" Rich shrieked.

"Why not?" Isaac shot back.

"Because it's insane, it's suicide, it's, well, unpatriotic!" Rich spat out.

"Unpatriotic?" Isaac asked, "Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds?"

"No, it's not stupid, it's fucking sane," Rich shot back as he pushed Isaac.

"No, it's fucking insane," Isaac said as he punched Rich hard in the shoulder. In pure surprise the boy fell down, knocking his lemonade from the table he had set it on. It fell to the wooden, backyard deck and shattered explosively. Isaac had _hit_ him. More than anything else, this terrified Rich. He hated fights. He had never once been in a fight in his entire life, and having grown up coddled the boy had learned more than anything else to fear pain.

"This country has come to ignore real patriotism," Isaac said as he composed himself again, "real patriotism involves freedom. We have lost that freedom, I don't know if you have noticed it or not. Look what happened for Ralph."

"We've lost those freedoms for the greater good," Rich said with great hurt in his voice.

"For the greater good..." Isaac replied with an ironic laugh, "Wow. You actually believe all the rhetoric that comes spewing out of the big wigs' mouths, don't you?"

As Rich could only continue looking hurt, Isaac continued. Rich could tell that he was making every move, saying every word methodically in order to give them maximum impact. Isaac had a way of doing that that always managed to both fascinate and scare Rich at the same time. He had been this way since middle school, and time had only made him more meticulous.

"We are under siege because of our age, you do know that, right? And is it for the greater good? Seriously, what greater good has come from this? Innocent people are dying all the time. Ralph isn't the only one, hundreds are killed all the time in the streets, in the game, in Bunazca. The Battle Royale program, this country's pride and joy and new national pastime, all it has done is create a split among the people and make money for those who choose to profit on the pain and suffering of others. It has created terror where there was none. It has created a totalitarian, fascistic empire that still seems to cling to the guise of a democracy based upon liberty and freedom. Until we can be who we were in a time before we had to worry about being hanged for a wrong action or word, we are not free. We can make a stand, we can show them that what is going on in our country is wrong, but we have to be together. We have to be solid. I need your help."

Rich did not know what to do. There was the easy answer, the one that made the most sense. The one that always had. Then there was the part of him that he wanted to ignore. The part of him that said Isaac was right. It was hard to turn away from. He was a patriot, he always had been, but at the same time he also watched the news. It was hard not to notice how many young people were being executed on dubious charges. It was hard not to see how many people died on a regular basis in the Battle Royale program. There were those who might have called Isaac Freemantle unpatriotic, but he managed to strike a chord in Rich Miller...

* * *

...unfortunately not enough of one to prevent Rich from going to the police. He had agonized over the decision for almost a week and ultimately caved in to what he believed was right. Isaac was going to get people killed. He was going to try to upset the balance that the government was trying to maintain. Hell, Isaac Freemantle was trying to be a _terrorist._ There was no way that Rich could allow that to happen. No way, no how. So he reported it to the proper authorities.

Well, more appropriately he told his dad first and managed to fudge the details about when the meeting took place so that way he wouldn't get chewed out for taking so long to report it. His father called him responsible and a "good man" for doing what he did, a remark that caused Rich to smile to no end. They went together to the police station, and after making a statement Rich was allowed to go his merry way. They said that he did the right thing, and that they would be in touch if any follow ups were necessary.

Isaac should have disappeared without a trace, probably with a first class ticket to either a gallows or Bunazca. Instead, every day Rich went to school he found himself surprised that Isaac was still there. He was not arrested. He was not executed. If anything, his fervor for keeping the protest on was stronger than ever as he began scheduling regular meetings with Rich and others he seemed to trust. Rich kept up the good face for fear of upsetting the apple cart, but at the same time he was beginning to seriously worry about what was going to happen. They had to take Isaac, something had to happen, but when?

It was mid-October before the police got back to him. On a Saturday they called him in, asking (or rather demanding) that his father not be in on the meeting despite Rich being a minor. Rich was scared out of his mind. Something was wrong, something had to be wrong, they wouldn't call him in on his own unless something was wrong, would they?

As it turned out, nothing was wrong. At least that was what they said. The men he talked with said they were detectives, but they seemed to know more than any local cop probably would. He reasoned that they were probably government agents, maybe FBI. Who they belonged to or worked with didn't matter. It was what they said that was important, and at the same time terrifying. They said that they needed his help. They needed him to be a true patriot and work for what was right. They said that on their own it would be hard to prove that Isaac was up to something, and that despite the codicils of The Thornton Act, they needed more proof than just Rich's word. They believed him, or so they claimed, but they needed him to act as a spy for them. They wanted him to make sure that Isaac's plan went off without a hitch, and that the protest actually went through. He could never let on that anything was wrong, and plan with them as much as needed to make sure it happened. Once it happened they would have enough probable cause to take Isaac and his unpatriotic accomplices in, while Rich would be lauded and celebrated as a great hero. One of the detectives even quipped that he would probably get to shake the president's hand over what he did. Rich liked that thought.

Instead of being afraid, this idea excited Rich. He would get to be a hero. He would get to be a patriot, and everyone would get to know about it. He would get to do the right thing, and if he was lucky what he had done could truly save a lot of lives. It was just a matter of time, he would have to wait, he would have to act, but he would get to be a good guy...

* * *

Acting wasn't easy. Lying wasn't easy. The potential betrayal of his friends (unpatriotic though they may be) wasn't easy. He thought it would be, but in the long run doing the right thing was turning out to be hard as hell. From a practical standpoint, the most difficult part was keeping up the constant act that he was in on the revolution. He had to agree with Isaac and occasionally speak at meetings as if he believed in everything that was going on. He had to gather together a bunch of people that he "trusted" for the inevitable army that would be used for taking part in the main protest. This part was harder, as not only did he have to reiterate the rhetoric that Isaac had given him to repeat, but he had to doom some of the people he considered friends to a potential death at the hands of the US government. He could have backed down, he could have half-assed it and just not tried hard in getting people to his side, but that would have been a bad move. Isaac was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them. He would have noticed something was wrong, and Rich did not want to know what would have happened had the protest not actually gone down. Either the government would get him, or Isaac would have.

So he lied. Constantly stressed and in fear for his own life, Rich lied as much as he humanly could. For some reason Isaac still trusted him despite his gradual deterioration, and for some reason that managed to tear Rich up even more inside. He had to pretend to be his friend, though inside he was secretly seeing him die. Every night he went to sleep, Rich would always see Isaac, Harlan, Yoshiko, Miranda, Danny and Sophia hanging by the gallows. Sometimes they would simply look dead with their puffed out tongues and bulging eyes. But sometimes, the worst times, they would look at him. They would look at him, point at him and shriek the wild shriek of the undead. Sometimes they would rip their stomachs open and bathe Rich in their blood. They would accuse him, devour him, and he would deserve every bit of it.

Rich Miller was falling apart. But he was a patriot. He was good. If he didn't have that to hang onto, he probably would have died on his feet before the protest even began.

* * *

And now he was trying to die.

Rich removed the gun from his chin. He couldn't do it. It was... it was too hard. It wasn't supposed to be that way. He was supposed to live. He was supposed to get a medal. He was supposed to get to shake the hand of the President of the United States. He was a good patriot. A good _man._ Instead he had been forced into the game and made into a weeping, wounded little boy who hurt all over. If he weren't so scared of his own pain and mortality, the boy would have been angry at the injustice of it all. Stifling back another sob, the boy rammed the gun up under his chin again. _Come on man, you fucking coward, just pull the trigger and get it over with. Pull it and just do it and get out of here. It's going to get you out of here and- no, don't do it, it's not how things are supposed to go. Like they said, real patriots fight the game. But real patriots don't get thrown in, do they? What the-_

A sound from behind caught the boy off guard. Purely on instinct, Rich swung around and pointed his gun at the source of the noise. He pulled the trigger without even thinking. The boy was startled by the sound and the kick of the seemingly small pistol, causing him to fall back into the snow at the base of the tree he leaned against. It took just a moment for him to hear a surprised groan and the sound of something heavy thudding in the snow. After that, the silence seemed almost deafening in the wake of the attack. _What happened? Oh shit, oh shit, OH SHIT!_

"Hello?" Rich asked as he forced himself to his feet. There was no response. He looked around, trying desperately to remember where he had fired. The boy did not have to look long. A body lay face down in the snow, blood slowly flowing out of it in an ever-widening pool. The morning sun made the seeping liquid show a bright red in stark contrast to the brilliantly white packed powder. Rich walked up to the downed figure and placed his foot on their back. Pressing as hard as he could, the boy rocked the person on the ground. They did not move.

"Oh shit," Rich said with his heart pounding, "are you all right?"

Later on Rich would wonder why he had behaved the way he did towards the body, but at the time it seemed a perfectly natural thing to do. The person had simply surprised him, and he had fired. It took a really long time for him to connect the dots and realize what he had really done. Kneeling down beside the person, Rich lifted their head up breathed a sigh of relief. They were dead, but they weren't one of his friends. That much was good at least. _You just killed someone. You killed a classmate. You just took part in the game... and it felt good, didn't it? That was almost exhilarating, wasn't it? This is what the real American does, this feels right, right? Holy crap it does!_

Looking at the body in the snow, Rich could feel what he could best associate with a feeling of great strength. Murder wasn't as hard as everyone in the revolutionary movement was making it out to be. On the contrary it had proven to be quite easy. It _was_ easy, but more importantly... it _could_ be easy. _You can do this again, can't you? It is a damn sight easier than putting that gun to your own head, and you really can pull it off._

"I can totally do this," Rich said to himself. It was mostly a matter of psyching himself up, but it seemed to be doing the job. Right? _Yeah, except you don't have a gun now do you? Just used your last bullet to get this poor bastard and-_

The dead boy in the snow had a gun. A big one by the looks of it. Probably had ammunition too. Kneeling down beside the body, Rich wrestled to remove his backpack. Inside there was still food, water and boxes of ammunition. Next gripping it by the shoulders, he tried to flip the face-down body onto its back. The dead boy had been large, but one bullet seemed to have done the job. Although turning the body over was difficult, the boy found this last thought to be rather comforting. No matter how bad things would get, they could always be evened out with a gun.

Finally flipping the bloody body over onto its back, Rich found a shotgun still cradled in its hands. It was brand new, police issue as far as he could tell, and with a little practice it could be incredibly deadly. There was plenty of ammo in the backpack, and with the proper motivation... the sky was the limit really. _I am a patriot. I am one of the good guys. I really can do this. I can play the game, I can win, and I can make everything right again. This was all my fault... but I can make it better._

With a new backpack on his back and weapon in hand, Rich stepped over the dead body of Alan Wiles, a.k.a. Boy # 15, and into the game with a new outlook on life. He would play, he would kill, and that would make everything better again. The country would see that he truly was a patriot. They would see...


	20. Hour 10: 45 Contestants Remaining

* * *

**Hour 10**

**45 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

Amos Epstein, a.k.a. Boy # 7, generally looked quite thoughtful. With a well groomed face and black, rectangular glasses, he looked about as dapper and professional as any high school reporter could hope to look. Sitting in a booth in Grover's Mill's lone bowling alley, the boy anxiously watched his cell phone and waited for the call. The call would come, he knew it had to; he just wanted to know _when_ it would be coming. Once the call came in, a weight would be lifted off his shoulders, and he could not wait for that. The group was beginning to become a pain in the ass.

He'd talked to Isaac, and he'd followed his orders to a T. Although he tended to get you in trouble, Amos still knew better than to doubt Isaac at a time like this. Isaac had said to gather as many people as possible, and so Amos had gathered. Isaac had said to stay put until further notice, and so Amos had. Everything was going to plan as best as could be expected, but still Amos was nervous. Isaac was the leader, Amos was more of a middle-manager. He could pass on orders just fine, but actually leading... he was beginning to think that it was a lot harder than it looked.

As well, he had good reason to be nervous. Aside from being thrust into a leadership position in a Battle Royale, there were two things that made his time in the game fairly infuriating. The first was the fact that their hastily flung together group was rather poorly armed. Between the six of them they had been assigned one pistol (a Luger to be precise), a whip, a hatchet, a bulletproof vest, a stapler and a clown mask. Amusingly enough the latter two had been assigned to Amos and his boyfriend, Shaun Archer, a.k.a. Boy # 12. When the leaders of a group are poorly armed, gaining the greater confidence is not as easy as it could be. This led into the second major problem that Amos could foresee: nobody really liked anybody else. He had done his best to get people together who wanted mutual protection, but the people he had gathered, well, had some interpersonal problems.

Firstly there was Brenda Lennon, a.k.a. Girl # 15. A loud, squat girl of African-American descent (and she of the hatchet), Brenda could best be described as a pain in the ass. She favored rather large protests for ultimately futile causes, and hated Isaac with a passion. Amos truly had no idea how he had managed to talk her into the group, but she had stayed, and she complained every step of the way. That was one problem. Vic Benedict, a.k.a. Boy # 23, and Alyssa Fallon, a.k.a. Girl # 23, were rather ambivalent characters who would have left sooner rather than later if it were up to them. They just seemed to want to get it on (_not that bad an idea_) until the very end of things, and although he normally wouldn't have tried to fight them too badly had they wanted to leave, Vic did possess their only gun.

But compared to Phoebe Valverde, a.k.a. Girl # 11, the other three were positively delightful to handle. A pretty and privileged pageant girl, it was only with the greatest reluctance that Amos had brought her into the group. Had Isaac not wanted as many people as possible, he never would have even tried. But he did want as many people as possible, and thusly they all had to endure Phoebe's complaining. If it could be griped about, she would gripe about it. She would complain about the cold. She would complain about how they were going to die. She would call Isaac all sorts of names that probably shouldn't come out of the mouth of a pageant girl. She kept saying that she would run out and try to survive on her own, but every time she did she still stayed put. She was a pain in the ass, but she was another body, and there was always a time and a place where a lot of bodies would be needed. What Isaac was planning... that would need a lot of people. It was crazy, but he could probably swing it.

"But why do I have to swing this one?" the boy muttered to himself idly.

"Come again?" Shaun asked earnestly. Looking up at him, Amos could only smile. They were so different, but still managed to get together somehow. Get together and work. That was the key, and that was the mystery. Being an athlete with a Captain America physique, Shaun had forced himself into the closet for the longest time. But somehow they had gotten together, they had hit it off, and they had made it work. Shaun had come out with little fanfare, and they had a nice little relationship going on, minus one or two speed bumps (like a massive, insane protest). Shaun was more of a people person than Amos, able to calm both him and the rest in their group rather effectively.

"Thank you," Amos said with a nervous smile.

"For what?" Shaun asked as he watched Alyssa trying to set up some pins at the end of an alley. Vic wielded a bowling ball in each hand and looked rather enthused to play. At the other end of the rink, Brenda lay on her back on a booth and threw a coin into the air, while Phoebe was doing something with her backpack. _At least we're not fighting anymore._

"Keeping me sane mostly I think," Amos replied, "it hasn't been easy, you know?"

"I don't think it's been easy for any of us. I mean, we are in a Battle Royale, you know," Shaun responded with attempted wit. It was enough to make Amos smile for a little bit at least.

"So why are we staying here?" Amos asked rather idly. He knew the answer, after all he was the one who insisted it, but still... it never hurt to be reassured.

"We're staying becau-" Shaun began, immediately cut off as he saw Phoebe make a break for the door. The athletic boy jumped to his feet, trying to make his way to block off the door. Thankfully, he was indeed faster and was able to get in her way.

"Hey, hey, whatcha doing?" Shaun said rapidly as he waved for the rest of the people in the bowling alley. Vic, Alyssa and Brenda looked on with vague interest, but none seemed to have any desire to come over.

"I'm done with this, all right?" Phoebe said as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Why? We're safe here, we got each other," Shaun fired back.

"We got jack shit, and a bunch of people with only one gun. That's not safety, that's a shooting gallery," Phoebe said quickly.

Amos responded, placing a comforting hand on her arm, "Come on Phoebe, it's just another few minutes, we wait on the call and then we head-"

The girl fought through with only the mildest of grunts of irritation, "Take your hands off of me! I just said I'm done, all right? I've hung out here long enough, nothing's going on, nothing's going to happen, Isaac's never going to pull that stick out of his ass quick enough to do anything smart, and I just want to bug out, all right? You guys have your own little love in, I'm going to take my chances on the outside."

"Look, it's just gonna be another few minutes, Isaac is going to call, we're going to meet up with a bunch of other people, and we're all going to be safe. Trust me," Amos practically pleaded. Shaun looked on with minor irritation. Most of the time Amos was fairly charismatic and well-spoken (probably why he dealt with Isaac as much as he did), but when he got particularly stressed he quickly would become whiny. It's not that he really minded whiny (though sometimes it got quite bad), but the fact that it accomplished little always managed to bug him. _Besides, fighting over Phoebe really isn't that good use of time, is it?_

"Tough shit," the girl said as she stormed past the boys and out the door. The boyfriends stood in the doorway and watched the girl leave. They probably could have stopped her if they tried hard enough, and part of Amos really did want to. _But... maybe some people just didn't need to be saved._

"What was that all about?" Vic asked as he wandered on over with a carefree look on his face.

"Phoebe left," Shaun said simply.

"Miss pageant girl wanted to strike out on her own?" Vic retorted. He was clearly trying to hold back a laugh.

"Yeah, she did," Amos responded.

"Do we want her back? I mean, she's a bitch, but if we need her I got the gun," Vic said as he pointed to the Luger stuffed in his pants. Amos didn't even know how he wanted to respond to that one. _Do we really want to go that far for something like this? But do we want to leave her alone too? We can't do this, we can't keep debating, keep wondering over what the hell we are going to do. If we're going to do something, we have to do it right._

"No, we've got to wait here," Amos said in a nervous voice, "we have to wait for Isaac to call. He'll tell us what to do. He'll get us out of this. He has a plan, he always does. He'll save us."

_...he will, right?_

* * *

While the majority of those cast for the Eighth Annual United States Battle Royale were brought in for their perception of being good characters, there were still a great many who were cast simply because they looked good. Though many in positions of power had argued against this technique, they were for the most part overruled. The audiences wanted beautiful people, and so they were provided. Unfortunately for them, Kendal Fuchs, a.k.a. Girl # 22, and Amanda Marquette, a.k.a. Girl # 18, were cast for this exact reason. Had either of them been of average appearance, their personality profiles would not have aroused any attention among the big wigs. Instead they had pretty faces, well kept hair (short and red for Amanda, long and blonde for Kendal), and bodies that got them plenty of attention (good from the boys, bad from the girls). They were perfect as far as the higher ups were concerned, even though they had done essentially nothing in the game itself.

But they were trying to survive at least. Hiding out on one of the farms in the northwest end of town but a stones throw from the Briar Patch, the two girls lined up a bunch of loose tin cans they had found on an old wooden fence.

"I still don't know how this is going to help," Kendal said as she wielded the massive Desert Eagle pistol she was provided, "this thing's going to rip me in half if I try to use it."

"Now when have I heard you say that one before?" Amanda replied as she checked the clip in her long-barreled Strayer Voigt M1911. She had never used a gun in her life, but now that they had the light to see it seemed that learning to operate the weapon would be a good idea.

"Ha ha, very funny," Kendal replied sarcastically, "but seriously, this thing's like, huge. Won't it like, break my shoulder or something?"

"Not if you hold it right. The book says if you hold your shoulders right and brace your arms properly that it won't give you much trouble. Besides, we gotta take what we we're given. At least we're better off than anyone who didn't get a gun, right?" Amanda reasoned.

"Yeah, I guess," Kendal shrugged. Amanda was probably right. Amanda was usually right in things like this. That was one thing that Kendal never seemed to understand. Then again, considering the fact that she wasn't particularly bright, there was a lot she didn't understand. But Amanda had always been at the top of the list of things she just plain could not get. The two girls had been bff's for about as long as she could recall, probably all the way back to second grade or so, and for all intents and purposes they had always been pretty similar. Physically they were similar enough that they were mistaken for sisters. Neither of them really cared all that much about their marks and school. Perhaps most importantly, they both had similar views regarding how stupid the double-standard of promiscuity between boys and girls was. Amanda had time and again railed against the term slut, calling it a crappy way to separate boys and girls even further. She would say that either boys who got around needed to be called "sluts" too, or girls who decided to enjoy all the fun their bodies had to offer should be called "players" as well.

Thusly, Amanda and Kendal were players.

But what mystified Kendal the most was how much thought Amanda could put into things like this. For as long as she had known, Kendal never thought Amanda was that much smarter than she was. They got the same grades, so that couldn't be the case. But there were things that Amanda just seemed to get. She seemed to understand the sociopolitical scene at Amberlaine High, knowing how to properly deal with people and school politics in such a way that got them in as little trouble as possible with all except Madison and her gang. But then again, it was hard as hell for anyone to avoid Madison's wrath, so there was nothing to worry about there.

Amanda could just figure things out, and they more often than not seemed to work. Things could have been better, they could always have actually tried for some semblance of popularity in the general school population, but they were fine together. _Always got along fine and we always got the boys. Girl shouldn't have gotten too hung up over the whole Basim thing, but what can you do?_

"So point and shoot?" Kendal asked as she warily eyed the large pistol in her hands.

"Basically," Amanda responded, "it'll still kick, but brace yourself just right still and it'll treat you just right. Just keep your sights lined up, make sure you've ditched the safety, and you're set."

"Which one's the safety again?" Kendal responded.

Amanda came over, looking at the gun. Lifting her own weapon as a comparison, the girl quickly eyed the two pistols and nodded.

"It's already off, don't worry about it. Don't shoot yourself, but don't worry. Just aim, fire, and try to hit a can. We keep at it we might actually be able to defend ourselves in this thing, am I right?" Amanda said with a forced smile.

"Sure, no problem," Kendal said in an effort to convince herself. It all seemed fairly stupid. There was no way either of them was going to make anything, test-firing would do no good, when it came down to it they would just have to-

BOOM!

"Jesus Christ!" Kendal shrieked in surprise.

Amanda had quickly aimed and fired off a shot at one of the cans. She did not exactly meet her mark, but she did blow a rather significant hole in a fence post near their target area. The red-haired girl looked shaken, but a wary smile crossed her face.

"Almost got it," she said with a shaky voice, "your turn."

"Sure, great," Kendal responded as she took aim at one of the cans. _She hit the fence, it can't be that hard, right?_

BOOM!

The kick from the pistol nearly threw Kendal off her feet. The impact made it feel as if her shoulder was nearly torn from her body, but it could have been worse. But the sound, that seemed to be the worst. They had heard gunshots in the distance all right, but these were close up. Her ears still rang. But there was something definitely exhilarating about it. The gun didn't blow up, they were both still alive and on their feet. This was definitely possible.

All the same, the cans still stood on the fence.

"That hurt like hell," Kendal said simply as she rotated her arms.

"It'll get better I think," Amanda said as she raised her gun again, "people use guns all the time, it'll get easier, and we'll get better with our aim I imagine."

A thoughtful, somewhat pained look crossed the redhead's face as she added, "We'll have to."

The sound of the gunfire did raise one interesting question, at least as far as Kendal was concerned. Although she often simply did not "get" things, she occasionally did have moments of good thinking.

"These guns are loud," Kendal noted.

"Yeah, they're pretty strong, they would be," Amanda responded.

"Well shouldn't we, like, worry about people following the sound of the shooting?" Kendal asked.

"I shouldn't think so, not too much at least," Amanda said with a bit of thought, "we are kind of in the middle of nowhere, at least at the edge of this thing. Most of the people in this thing are probably hiding out around the town I think, and even they're far away enough that I don't think they could probably hear us too well. All we'd have to worry about really is maybe one or two people hiding out in the sticks here who might be in range, and if they feel ballsy enough to attack two girls armed with good sized guns. That make sense?"

"Yeah, it does," Kendal said, feeling a little bit better.

"Good, now let's keep going until we get this right, right?" Amanda replied with a smile.

Feeling better than she had in a while, Kendal nodded. In kind with her best friend, the girl with the long blonde hair raised her pistol and aimed once more at the cans. Though it would be a while before both of them were able to hit them on a regular basis, both of them began to feel better about their chances in the game. The going would be hard, it would be bad, but at least they had each other. That was what mattered the most, at least as far as Kendal was concerned. They could protect each other at least...

* * *

The boy they called Grendel looked down at the dead boy with a mix of rage and confusion crossing its mutilated, masked face. The boy it had tracked through the forest was dead and robbed, taken by some opportunistic vulture (_not a vulture, you got the vulture, got its pelt and broke its mate_) that had just wandered along and shot him. It hurt the creature's pride as a hunter, but more than that it removed what would most certainly have been an excellent quarry. The girl, the first one, she was easy. She was not a bad kill, none of them ever were, but Grendel always liked a good hunt. A good hunt made things fun. A good hunt, be it through an evergreen forest or the sun-scorched hell of Bunazca, made life worth living.

Alan Wiles, a.k.a. Boy # 15, would have been a good hunt. He would have been a good kill with that gun of his. Instead he was taken by some random chance. For what he was capable of, the boy deserved better...

The sound of distant gunfire drew the beast's attention. It wasn't much, (_just a pistol... no, two different_) but it might be good. It could be very good. Maybe another good hunt, a good kill, another pelt... Smiling its lipless grin, Grendel gripped the double-bladed ax in its hands and began to run.

It was ready to play.

* * *

Eugene Chidester, a.k.a. Boy # 3, was trying desperately to get high. Well, maybe high was a bit too strong a term for how he was currently feeling, but he did want to calm down a bit. Mellow out maybe, get a chance at finally thinking things through better than before. Things would definitely look a little bit better after some decently abused prescription drugs, a mild sedative perhaps, some antidepressants even? He could dream. Not like he really expected to find much of anything in the well-pillaged town of Grover's Mill, but by looking at the map he had at one time hoped to find something, anything that could be of use at the Medical Center.

But that ultimately turned out to be a fairly stupid idea. The Medical Center was more of a half-assed hospital mixed with a doctor's office, and search though he might, the boy could find no drugs. Nothing in the pharmacy, nothing in the lock-up in the back, nothing in their one ambulance. Nada. Zilch. As far as he could tell, the town had been stripped free of drugs. On this he was only half-right. For the most part the town had been pillaged of its medicine by the government to prevent any wide-scale overdose suicides, but they had not taken them all. Knowing that people would be getting hurt, they did leave some necessary medical supplies so that the general lives of people could be extended in-game and further improve the quality of the program. Eugene's problem was that he was not the first to make a run on the Medical Center. Not but an hour before, Gillian Stavros, a.k.a. Girl # 10, had entered and removed all the medical supplies she could get her hands on, particularly all of the low-level painkillers that had been left behind.

Slamming a cabinet in the doctor's office closed, Eugene could only marvel at the injustice of it all. Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll. They were the only three things that he had really wanted out of life, and by the way things were going he wasn't going to get any of them, well, ever again he reasoned. It sucked about as hard as he believed anything ever could suck, and there didn't seem to be a lot that he could do about it. Sure, he could always try to fight, but with the Louisville Slugger that he had been assigned, there was no way he could stand a chance against the big boys. _Especially not like that, that thing that fucked up the girl at the farm. What the hell was that man? Seriously, what the hell could do that?_

The sight of the desecrated corpse of Jessica Tyler, a.k.a. Girl # 21, had haunted Eugene every moment since he had seen it. It was easily the most fucked up thing the boy could say he'd ever seen, and he knew fucked up. As a musician he always liked to try and push the envelope with messed up lyrics and melodies, keep up the outrageous behavior and alienate pretty much everyone in school except those he considered his best friends. Hell, that kind of thinking could have made him a star had the Battle Royale never happened, so he liked to think. But what had happened to that girl... that was beyond Eugene's comprehension. How someone could be legitimately fucked up in the head enough to do something like that, the boy could not comprehend. _What the hell did that one mean? Whoever did that, are they just starting, or finishing? Starting, it has to be..._

Storming out of the doctor's office, Eugene shook his head hard to try and get the image out of his mind. It wasn't working. All he could see was that dissected and blood-stained angel. He would have given anything to rid his mind of that haunting image. Well, at the time at least he thought he would have given anything to get rid of the image. Instead, as he exited the doctor's office the boy was blissfully unaware that horrors existed that could even flush from his mind the image of a splayed open Jessica.

"Oh, hello there," a calm male voice said from the side. Whirling around with his baseball bat held high, the boy saw that whoever it was had not recoiled in the slightest at the sight of someone wielding a heavy wooden club against them. They just looked at him with calm, borderline impassive eyes from behind a blue balaclava.

Though he could not see through the mask, Eugene got the impression that the boy in the blue balaclava was smiling. He didn't know why, but that scared him to the core. He could have attacked, the boy had no weapon drawn, but Eugene felt more comfortable with simply making a run for it. Whirling around on his heels, he made a break for the front door. It wasn't that far away, maybe fifty feet of linoleum and he could have made it through the swinging glass front doors without the slightest amount of trouble.

A thundering boom echoed throughout the small building, making Eugene's ears ring while it felt as if his left leg had exploded. As the useless limb collapsed out from underneath him, Eugene howled in agony. He hit the ground with a heavy thud, the baseball bat he carried clattering loosely out of his grip. In sheer terror the boy looked back to see his attacker calmly walking toward him, putting a heavy revolver back into their belt. For a moment Eugene tried to get back to his feet, but looking down to his wounded leg, it was clearly impossible. He had been shot in the knee with a very large gun, and all things considered it was lucky that the lower half of his leg was still attached. The boy in the blue balaclava walked up to him with the massive revolver held casually at his side. Walking up to the injured boy, he raised the gun and pointed it at him. Eugene cowered, trying to back away as he raised his hands to block his eyes.

The boy in the blue balaclava lowered the gun.

"Fear, nice, I like that," the boy said calmly from behind his mask, "always wondered what that looked like. I mean, really looked like. You see how people respond when they think they are afraid, some idle phobia that they think is truly life-threatening, and you become a bit jaded. I've always been curious as to what real fear looks like. Thank you for that."

The boy tipped an imaginary hat with his pistol to the boy on the ground, the eyes hardly changing as Eugene cowered in even greater fear. The attacker knelt down beside the wounded boy, speaking with an almost soothing, calming voice.

"There's a lot I'm curious about really, about people, how they work, what they look like on the inside, things like that, and I think there's a lot there that you can help me with," the boy said as he removed the balaclava. The handsome, smiling face of Frank Luczak, a.k.a. Boy # 14, stared down at the wounded Eugene with a look of pleasant satisfaction. Eugene simply looked up at Frank, wondering if he was too scared to scream.

"Now I can't promise that this won't hurt," Frank said as he rummaged through one of his pockets, "as it will probably, who am I kidding 'probably,' will definitely hurt like hell. At least once shock kicks in it won't be so bad, but I have no clue how long that takes. Ah well, right?"

Eugene looked up in terror at the boy as he pulled a packet of children's band-aids from his parka pocket. On the box were pictures of smiling clowns. Indeed, as Frank shook a few of them into his hand, the boy on the ground could see that the band-aids too were covered in cartoony, smiling clowns.

"But I can promise you that you won't have to see a thing, scout's honor," Frank said, licking his lips as he pinned Eugene's neck to the floor with his knee. Although Eugene fought and struggled for all he was worth (which wasn't much at the moment really), the wounded boy was no match for Frank as he calmly placed one band-aid over Eugene's left eye, and then the other. Eugene shuddered and fought as hard as he could while now blind on the floor. As he clawed about the floor in an effort to make an escape, a slight smile began to cross Frank's face.

"Ah come on, don't feel down. After all, everyone loves a clown..."

As it turned out, Eugene wasn't too afraid to scream after all.


	21. Come Together

* * *

**Come Together**

* * *

Sitting in a chair on the church's stage, Isaac Freemantle, a.k.a. Boy # 17, rubbed his temples with his hands. There was a lot to be done, and he was the one who had to set it in motion. The eleven people who were milling about the pews below were waiting for something to happen. They knew that it would be coming from Isaac, and he was waiting to make the announcement. Well, since two had been sent away, the plan was already _technically _in motion, but he had not made the official announcement. That needed to be a bit more... delicate.

There had been a lot of discussion as to why he hadn't gathered together more people sooner, but he would tell no one why. If he did, well, it would have probably cost him some points. In short, had he tried to gather a lot of people early on, there might have been one or two people who would have tried jockeying for a leadership position. Starting out with a small, loyal circle of people would create a buffer zone before the necessary big gathering. This way at the very least he would have some people willing to protect him. It was selfish, but he was important. It was the only way to make sure the plan would go off without a hitch.

Looking to his watch, Isaac took a deep breath. It was time. He knew it, but he was nervous about implementing it. It carried a lot of potential for good in the rebellion, but at the same time it was the most risky. Thus far he had been drawing in a few people at a time, particularly those who were close and those who he trusted the most. Now though... now it was the time to get some bodies. Now was the time to start bringing in pretty much everyone in the game if they could afford it, minus those who were probably dangerous. The only problem inherent in this was the fact that it was hard to know who was dangerous and who was not. In previous games they had announced who had made what kill in an effort to build up terror and mystique, but in this game... things were different. Isaac didn't like it. It removed some of their advantage and made things more of a minefield. In short, it made gathering a great number of people together very dangerous.

But he had to. That was the only way it would all work.

Stepping up to the pulpit, Isaac pushed his glasses up his nose and cleared his throat.

"Can I have your attention please?" he said as loudly as he could.

The eleven below immediately drew to attention, filling out the first couple of rows as they waited for his speech.

"Now, we've secured this church as much as can be done under the circumstances. All of you who have working cell phones, I suggest you now start making your calls. We are going to need to gather as many people together as possible for this to work, so whoever you can get would be the difference between life and death."

Looking gravely to the people sitting before him, Isaac added, "But be careful. People are playing the game. Some of them are going to be people you know. Because of that, please make sure that if you call someone that it's someone you can trust one hundred percent. We can not afford doubt, and we cannot afford failure at a time like this. We are going to get out, but we are going to need to rely on each other. So start calling, but keep the safety of the group in mind."

Like clockwork, all of those who had cell phones began pulling them out and making calls. Isaac looked down upon them all with a smile. The escape was going to work. They were going to pull it off, and it would be glorious. Sure, some would probably lose their lives in the process, but really it would be a necessary sacrifice. Calling together as many people as possible really did have that morbid element to it. Casualties would be great, so the more people gathered, the more likely some would escape. In spite of that gruesome thought, the boy tried to smile.

"Come together, right now, over me," Isaac sung softly to himself with a hesitant smile.

* * *

Gillian Stavros, a.k.a. Girl # 10, was beginning to feel quite satisfied with herself as she cautiously wandered the streets of Grover's Mill. Things were pretty bad, but at the same time they were beginning to slowly gain some semblance of order. She had raided the medical supplies from the clinic and had formed a fairly efficient doctor's bag. It wasn't much, mostly some antibiotics, antiseptics, pain killers, bandages and sewing supplies, but it would have to do. It was crazy, she knew it was crazy, but at the same time she knew that it could make a difference. _Try to help everyone, that's how it goes. It's impossible, but it's worth a try. But if you can help one person, maybe, just maybe you can make some good come out of all this..._

The girl's cellular phone began to ring rather shrilly in her pocket, scaring her immensely for a moment before she figured out what was going on. Quickly spinning about to make sure that no one was watching, she quickly pulled the phone from her pocket and flipped it open.

"Hello?" she asked.

"Hey Gillian, it's Christina," the voice on the other side of the phone said quickly. It was one of the few voices that Gillian would have actually been glad to hear. Gillian and Christina Montressor, a.k.a. Girl # 24, were teammates on the school's track team. Although they weren't the closest of friends, they were on good terms and Christina was someone she knew that she could trust.

"Chrissy!" Gillian exclaimed.

"Can't and won't talk long," Christina said quickly, "so here's what's gotta happen..."

* * *

_She can't be dead. She just... can't. It's not her. It can't be her. There were other girls that could look like her, it could be Julie, or Hera, or Kerry... no, it's her. You know it's her. But who could do something like that, something so... so horrible, to anyone? To her? No, it can't be her. Why? What happened? Who is it? It's her, isn't it?_

"It is," Calvin Spencer, a.k.a. Boy # 11, said miserably as he knelt by the hanging remains of his girlfriend, Jessica Tyler, a.k.a. Girl # 21. He almost wished he hadn't found it. He almost wished that if he didn't know she were dead that she would still be alive. But that would be stupid. In a game like the Battle Royale, people die all the time. People are killed all the time. That was what happened, that was what they did. That was the purpose. _But why her? She was mine, why her? For the love of God... she didn't deserve this. Why her? They could have killed anyone else that they wanted, but not her. She was mine, why did they have to kill her?_

Though he tried his best not to, the boy could not help but cry out to the world. With tears streaming down his face, he cried, he screamed, he roared until all that would come forth was a strangled, gravelly rasp. He screamed and wailed, bawled out loud as he hit the snow and punched the wall of the barn. It wasn't fair, none of it was fair, it was all so horrible. Of all the people this could happen to, an atrocity like _this_, it seemed to be most unfair for it to happen to someone as good as Jessica Tyler. He cried so hard that his nose began to bleed, but he didn't care in the slightest. Everything hurt. Everything felt bad. It felt like the world was ending. Had the ground split open and swallowed him up, he was sure that he would not have minded it. If anything he would have welcomed it. The plan, the future, all of it was torn in two. He was going to spend the rest of his life with Jessica. Instead, she was hanging naked and mutilated by her feet from this shitty barn in this fucking game.

It had been a monster that had at her. It had to be. No rational human could do something so horrible and with such ferocity. They had ripped her apart, spread her out all over the place, and taken what they wanted with them. It would not have surprised the boy in the slightest if they had eaten part of her, or worse... _no, don't think like that. She's dead. They did it, they fucked her up, and they killed her. They killed her. She's dead, she's dead because they fucking killed her. And what are you going to do about it?_

He stayed kneeling by her for the longest time, but as he began to regain some semblance of sanity, Calvin began looking to the ground. There were footprints on the ground near where she had been butchered. Big ones. They led back and forth from the nearby farmhouse a couple times and then appeared to go off into the forest. Their prints were heavy and pronounced in the snow, sinking deep and giving a distinct path to follow them.

Looking at his girlfriend once more, Calvin spoke with a wavering voice, "I will find them. I will find them and I will kill them. I will make them pay. I will make them suffer. I will kill them. For you."

Getting to his feet, the boy didn't think twice in kissing his girlfriend's remains despite the fact that she had lips no more. As he began to follow the heavy footprints into the forest, the boy became aware that the cellular phone in his pocket was ringing. He didn't even look once at the device as he pulled it from his pocket and hurled it against a nearby tree. The phone shattered to a million pieces, but he didn't care. He was going to hunt down Jessica's killer and make them pay. It would not be easy, it would not be fun, but boy would it feel _good_...

* * *

The chemical mix was almost right. He had never fully tested it out in Amberlaine as blowing stuff up there would probably be seen as bad form, but Nick McIntyre, a.k.a. Boy # 24, was itching to give it a try. He had already capped off several lengths of pipe in an effort to make some bombs of his own. He had filled them with whatever he could get his hands on in the garage of a rather nice house: nuts, bolts, nails, bits of broken glass, some stray chunks of fiber glass. They would rip people to shreds, make them bleed, make them suffer, and it would be fun to watch. It would not be quite like watching a good burn, but the town would burn in its own time. He would make sure of it. The pipe bombs, well... they were more of a defensive thing. They were for those who wouldn't fear the pistol he had, and there would be plenty of those in a game like this.

The only problem with making pipe bombs was that with the chemicals in their current condition, one wrong calculation in dosage would have some fairly deadly conse-

The buzzing of the cellular phone on his thigh nearly caused Nick to drop his funnel. With reasonable fear, the boy screamed miserably. He stopped himself quickly, eyes darting back and forth as he licked his lips. _Just the phone, just the phone, don't fuck up and blow yourself to kingdom come just because someone thought they wanted to give you a call._

Nick only needed to wait another moment for the phone to stop ringing. Finishing his pour, the boy set down his bottle of household cleaner and funnel and pulled the phone from his pocket. _Why would Hugo call me? Dumbass. He can fight his game, I'll fight mine, no way I'm letting a guy that big pull me into a trap._

With frustration, the boy crammed his cell phone inside one of the pipe bombs. Sure, it wouldn't make that great a piece of shrapnel, but he didn't need to worry about it anymore anyway. All that mattered was the burn. The town would burn, the people would burn, and he would be laughing the entire time.

* * *

The boy smelled smoke. Under the circumstances and considering the temperature it wouldn't have been that odd for someone to be using a fireplace, but this smelled different. This smelled bad, and for some reason he began to follow its scent down Ridgemont Street. It was when he heard the screams that Carlos Bautista, a.k.a. Boy # 6, began to run through the snow. He knew it was stupid, he knew that it could be a trap and was likely someone on the verge of death, but he had to do something. To hear something like that and do nothing... that was murder. _Couldn't have saved Misty. You tried, but you didn't. It's not your fault, but maybe you can do something this time. You can make things right this time..._

The boy could see smoke pouring from the back of a house, seemingly joined by a choked scream that managed to force its way through. It was a girl's voice, and it was crying out for help. That was all he needed to know. Running around to the back, he lifted his shotgun overhead and smashed out two of the windows from which smoke was pouring. A blast of ugly, black smoke blew forth, followed by an even louder scream by the girl inside.

"Get out through the window!" Carlos yelled.

"I can't!" the girl inside cried out, "There's too much fire!"

"Shit," Carlos muttered to himself as he ran around to the backyard of the house. The backyard of this house was quite nice in a rural-suburban sort of way. There was a frozen-over hot tub, a nice brick-oven barbeque, a practical zoo of cute stone animals and a swing set that glistened with frost. The back door to the house was one of sliding glass, quickly taken care of as he chucked a decorative stone frog through it. Smoke began to filter through, but not as strongly as on the corner of the house where he had broken out a window.

"Hello? Where are you?" the boy cried out as he stormed through the house. The question soon proved to be redundant as he could see the choking smoke pouring out of the kitchen. A girl in her heavy, cold-weather clothes was curled into a ball near a cabinet. Fire surrounded her, devouring the room and filling the air with noxious smoke and ash.

"Come on over here!" he shouted. The girl just looked up at him with terrified eyes, shaking her head as if in shock. She wouldn't move. He felt like cursing at the girl but immediately stifled the impulse. It would accomplish nothing, and it wasn't a good thing to do. _Great. Time to be a hero._

Slinging his shotgun over his shoulder, Carlos held his breath and ran into the room with his arms over his head to protect against debris. The room was sweltering, the fire practically roaring as it began to consume with even greater ferocity. _You broke out a window, just gave that fire a big mouthful of oxygen. Real smooth my friend, real smooth._

Forcing the girl to her feet, the boy pulled her from the room and practically flung her into the backyard. The girl was crying and choking, gasping for air as she looked gratefully to her savior and then fearfully back toward the house. Carlos immediately recognized her as Kerry Rawlings, a.k.a. Girl # 2. An average-looking African-American girl with beaded cornrows, she looked a mess.

"Are you all right?" Carlos asked.

"I found some potatoes, I thought I could make some fries, maybe calm down a bit, but the grease got all over the place and then the fire and then..." the girl blubbered before breaking down once more into sobs.

"It's all right," Carlos said as he embraced the girl comfortingly, "it's all right."

"My backpack's in there!" the girl practically shrieked, "My backpack, it's got my purse and my food and-"

An explosion from within the kitchen blew out another window, the fire quickly spreading around the house.

"It's gone," Carlos said, "can't get anything out of there. But you're alive, all right?"

The girl looked up to him in shock, her deep brown eyes watery as she collapsed once more against him. _You saved her man. You did good. That's real good ain't it? Got to be the hero and everything. Now maybe find the boy in that blue ski-mask and everything'll even itself ou-_

It was then that the boy's cell phone began to ring.

* * *

He'd been on the phone for nearly ten minutes, but at least he was smiling. When Amos Epstein, a.k.a. Boy # 7, was smiling, that meant things were going well. Despite their mutual troubles and the recent departure of one of their members, he called the members of his group around for a meeting. Though they had seen him take a call, few showed any interest. He'd made a bunch of phone calls, few of which really seemed to be of any consequence. This time however, he had yelled for them all to come over and listen.

"That was Isaac," he said, "he said that he's got people coming and that they'll be here any minute now so we can get out and join the rest of his crew."

"What people?" Brenda Lennon, a.k.a. Girl # 15, asked.

"I don't know, he just said that he sent a couple people with guns, this way at least we can move on our own and still stay pretty safe," Amos replied.

"You're sure they're here to protect us?" Brenda asked again, puffing herself out slightly. She seemed to be edging herself to a fight, and nobody was looking to meet her challenge. Well, almost no one.

"What do you think they're going to do, try to wipe us out?" Vic Benedict, a.k.a. Boy # 23, replied as calmly as he could.

"Yeah, it is a possibility ain't it? This is Isaac we're talking about, what's to say he doesn't have an army raised that he's going to use to try to blast us to kingdom come?" Brenda practically accused.

"Why are you still here then? You've known that this was the score from the beginning, you knew that we were all waiting out for Isaac, so why did you stick around?" Vic asked simply. Brenda did not seem to have an answer for this, but she still had a look of indignation on her face that seemed raring for a fight.

Thankfully, as it appeared she was about to try to fight back, a knock came from one of the bowling alley's glass front doors. Cautiously, Vic approached with his pistol held high, watching the two silhouetted figures standing outside.

"Come on guys, let us in, it's fucking cold out here!" Darwin Wong, a.k.a. Boy # 20, hollered through the glass door. Looking to Amos for validation, Vic quickly pulled it open. In spilled Darwin and Conrad Ripley, a.k.a. Boy # 18, wielding a rifle and double-barreled shotgun respectively. Darwin had an enthusiastic, almost joking smile across his face, while Conrad simply looked glad to have the job done.

"We're your escort," Conrad said simply.

"Yeah guys, let's get this mofo on the road," Darwin said as he rubbed his hands together, "this game won't just let us escape on its own!"

Amos and Shaun Archer, a.k.a. Boy # 12, looked positively relieved for someone to come to their rescue. Brenda looked on rather dubiously, but seemed not to be arguing anything for once. The most skeptical of the bunch was probably Alyssa Fallon, a.k.a. Girl # 23. Going over to her boyfriend Vic, she whispered in his ear.

"What the hell does that mean?" she asked softly.

"That he thinks he's cool," Vic replied.

"Ah, gotcha," Alyssa replied.

Nevertheless, the five from the bowling alley followed their armed guards to the church.

* * *

Although Isaac had called Basim Sharafi, a.k.a. Boy # 13, several times in the game's earliest hours with high hopes for another close lieutenant, his hopes were once again quashed. Basim's phone was still turned off. Hoping for the best, he left a message.

* * *

Madison Holland, a.k.a. Girl # 14, was pissed off. There was nothing about this that was strange as she was generally something of an ill-tempered person, but this was worse than usual. Normally a girl who thrived on the control she held over the world around her, more than anything else she was angry as to how out of her hands everything was here. Two of her four closest friends who had been brought into the game were dead, and the third had gone AWOL. To make things even worse, she hadn't even been assigned a real weapon. They had given her a Magic 8 Ball, which was probably still sitting out there on the road from when she had jumped off the bus, searched her bag and then immediately ditched it. Hiding out in a house in town, the girl had improvised a weapon the best she could by pulling the staff off a toilet plunger and sharpening it against a piece of metal, but that could only go so far. She was fucked, and she hated it.

...and then of course there was the fact that she looked like hell. That much was one of the worst things as far as she was concerned. There was the distinct chance that she could win the whole thing and be a star because of it, but it wouldn't do her much good if she kept looking like shit. Her long blonde hair was a mess, her usually perfect skin was blotchy and dry. She needed makeup, she needed products, and she needed them bad. None of the trailers in the crappy trailer park she had hidden in had anything (well, anything that she would actually use), and this only angered her more. _But do you really want to go into town with all the murderers and try to get something? Is it really worth it? Besides, what's a podunk town like this going to have? Cheap Kmart fuckoff wannabe hot makeup? Nothing of quality, nothing that'd work with your skin. You'll figure something out, you always do..._

The ringing that pierced shrilly from her backpack scared Madison in the moment, but at the same time made her feel grateful. Someone was calling! She might have an ally after all, and if she had an ally, she had control. She could do it, she could totally do it...

Opening her backpack and fishing the phone from her purse (which the army guys were nice enough to include, but assholes enough to remove most of her possessions aside from feminine hygiene products), she looked at the name of the caller in its window. The frantic smile she had for a moment soon turned into a scowl. It was Mallory. Sure, she pretended to be friendly with her most of the time, but so what? Mallory was a stupid whore as far as Madison was concerned. She'd probably screwed as many people (_and maybe a few dogs_) as it took to win that whole stupid homecoming queen title (_and beat you_), and Madison wouldn't have trusted her even with a gun pointed at her head.

Turning the ringer to 'MUTE', the girl stuffed her cell phone and purse back into her backpack. She had no clue what Mallory wanted, nor did she care. She was going to leave the crappy trailer park and try to find some real products. Sure, people would call her stupid, maybe insane, but she didn't give a shit. If any of them gave her any trouble, she'd stab them with her sharpened plunger staff. _That'd show 'em._

* * *

A variety of odd circumstances prevented some contestants from even receiving phone calls from the revolutionary group.

Chad Doerner, a.k.a. Boy # 25, didn't have a cell phone, and thusly wasn't called.

A matter of days before being taken into the game, Rene Foucalt, a.k.a. Girl # 25, had changed cell phone companies and received a new number that no one else in the contest had.

Natalya Serov, a.k.a. Girl # 8, was using the bathroom while Hera Morgan, a.k.a. Girl # 20, called her. With her phone out of the room, she did not hear it ring, and not thinking ahead Hera did not leave a message.

No one in the church had the phone numbers of Amanda Marquette, a.k.a. Girl # 18, and Kendal Fuchs, a.k.a. Girl # 22.

The phone of Randal Hudson, a.k.a. Boy # 19, was accidentally damaged during processing. It was only minor crush damage, as it only damaged the earpiece, but it made receiving calls next to impossible. Thankfully he was able to text Glen back and get directions to the meeting place. He was one of the lucky ones.

* * *

Frank Luczak, a.k.a. Boy # 14, tried his best to brace the cell phone against his head with his shoulder. Had he had a larger phone or not been as busy with his hands, this scenario would have been quite different. Instead, he found himself only slightly annoyed as he talked into the cell.

"Thank you so much for the offer Sophia; that does sound like an excellent idea. Some added protection and maybe more would really be nice. I'm a little tied up at the moment, but I could get there in maybe half an hour I think, forty-five minutes tops, is that all right?" he asked into the phone.

"No problem," Sophia replied over the phone, "just get here as soon as you can, we're looking to get this on and get moving as soon as we can."

"All right, I'll be there as quickly as I can," Frank said simply. Hearing Sophia hang up on the other end, the boy tried to figure out the best way to set the phone down considering his current predicament. If he just contorted his shoulder enough, set it down on the table...

The phone slipped from his shoulder and landed in the mangled mess that once was the torso of Eugene Chidester, a.k.a. Boy # 3. The cellular phone quickly disappeared amidst a massive coil of large intestine, causing Frank as much irritation as he honestly could feel. _Well that's going to make a mess of things now, won't it?_

The dead boy was strapped to an operating table, split open from sternum to pelvis. With a book on anatomy that he had found in one of the doctor's offices, he had tried identifying all the major organs in the chest and stomach cavity. He liked to think that he was doing a pretty good job too. True, his main incision was a bit inexperienced, and he made an utter mess splitting the sternum with the bone saw and rib-spreader, but the rest went fairly well. With a few slips of paper that he had found inside a desk, the boy labeled as many organs that he could identify with his meticulous block type. Heart, lungs, liver, intestines, spleen, pancreas (he was quite certain he discovered a small tumor on the boy's pancreas, but without better medical training he couldn't be sure), kidneys... True, the rudimentary dissection had been pretty messy, particularly when Eugene was still alive and noisy, but it had been quite educational. The smock, mask, and rubber gloves he had found had cut down on most of the mess, but it was still quite bloody. He would have loved to have stayed until the blood coagulated to do a truly thorough dissection, but that would have to wait.

Finally fishing the phone from a coil of Eugene's intestines, the boy looked on with disgust. Being practically submerged in blood seemed to have killed the phone. No matter how many times he pressed the power button, it would just not turn on.

"Bleh," Frank said as he wiped one gloved finger across the screen to remove blood, "I really hate it when that happens, don't you?"

* * *

Iago Cilek, a.k.a. Boy # 21, was unaware of the call he was receiving from Hugo as his phone was turned off. Nevertheless, had he been aware of the call he still would not have answered. He had a job, and there was no way that he was going to divert from it.

The scrawny boy with a samurai sword strapped to his back and an M1 Garand in his hands walked parallel to the Briar Patch. With the late Paxton's bag hanging around his arm and an oddly enthusiastic skip to his step, the boy did look to be a rather odd sight. Still deadly no doubt, but an odd sight all the same. Watching the ground and counting his steps, the boy quickly whipped his head around and found what he had been looking for. _One hundred yards down from the old truck, perpendicular to a trailer with a mailbox that looks like a whale and with a sniper's tower across the way... Perfect baby, perfect._

Looking up with a slightly maniacal grin on his face, the boy swung his rifle on its sling around his shoulder, lowered his fly and began to urinate next to the razor wire fence. Had he been less educated on the matter he would have probably pissed on the fence itself, but she had told him that that would be a bad idea. With a minor electric pulse going through the fence every so often, the boy did not want to take any chances with getting electrocuted, _especially_ through his dick. Finishing up and packing back up, the boy dropped the backpack that had been hanging around his arm into his hand. Swinging the bag around overhand once, twice, three times, the boy sent it sailing right into the middle of the Briar Patch's sea of razor wire.

Dropping the rifle back into his hands, the boy gave a quick wave to the nearby sniper tower. Though he could not see it, Sgt. Barry Charon waved back.


	22. Hour 11: 44 Contestants Remaining

**Author's Note:** All right, we're back in the swing of things! I'm going to try for semi-regular updates again. If anyone's interested in my anecdotes on the wide wonderful world of attempting to get published, I can update my bio page if you all want.

**Author's Disclaimer:** Although I've covered a lot of unsavory territory in my stories thus far, I'm attaching a special warning to this chapter. In it is a fairly graphic rape scene. I did not enjoy writing it, but it was necessary for future character development. Please read this chapter at your own discretion.

--Anthony Marston

**

* * *

Hour 11**

**44 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

There were DVD's. Lots of them. Thousands perhaps even. Most were arranged alphabetically, but there were a few that seemed to be out of place (probably the more recently watched of the bunch). Viewed from a distance, they might have looked to be a peculiar wallpaper as their colored edges all seemed to meld together as one. On closer inspection, one could see that they were all of the same genre.

"Honestly, how the fuck can someone have the funds to accumulate this much pornography?" Ruben "Rub" Wood, a.k.a. Boy # 5, said with amused exasperation as he thumbed through the collection on one wall. Although some may have found the room on the disturbing side, as far as the Three Amigos were concerned it was something like heaven. Assuming the DVD player worked, at least the next few days wouldn't be entirely boring. Unwholesome, yes, but they were in a Battle Royale, and thusly the thought never really crossed their mind.

"If there is a will, there is a way," Aziz Haddad, a.k.a. Boy # 8, replied as he looked through the collection on the opposite wall, "probably some big wig in a marketing firm, one of those white-collar jobs where you can never tell what the person is really like because they're all a bunch of identical looking white guys in shirts and ties. Still, you gotta admit it is impressive though."

"Yeah, whoever this guy was, he seemed to have a diverse set of interests, I'll give him that," Basim Sharafi, a.k.a. Boy # 13, said with some amusement from another wall as he idly pulled free a copy of 'Back Door Sluts 9'.

"Diverse interests, yeah. Some problems, maybe even more. Fucked up, more than likely. With all the pretty standard cheerleader and nun stuff here I seen at least ten each for every fetish in the book," Rub replied as he tried to steer clear of a block of DVD's titled 'Horselover'. He wouldn't quite register disgust on his face as, all things considered, he was impressed with what the guy who had owned the house before the Battle Royale had accomplished. In addition to the epic collection of pornography, the basement had a rather impressive sound system, a giant plasma TV, and an impressive array of erotic (well, _semi-_erotic at the very least) black velvet paintings, all surrounding a giant bed in the middle of the room covered in faux-zebra stripe fur. Despite the clear money that had been put into the room and the collection, he was willing to bet that whoever owned the house pre-game didn't get very much ass.

"So what of it?" Aziz asked.

"Never said that there was anything wrong with it, just said that whoever lived here had a lot of interests. Most of 'em just ain't my cup of tea. Many of 'em I would say are also probably generally excepted as fairly high up there on the fucked-upedness spectrum. Can't see why some people need to get into things like, well, dressing up like a baby and getting spanked by a lady dressed like a five hundred pound nurse," Rub responded quite earnestly.

"I don't think the ladies can help the five hundred pound part," Basim retorted with a laugh.

"You're missing the point man, what happened to just good (and I do mean good) old-fashioned sex?" Rub continued.

Aziz replied, "People get bored by it, people get new interests. Adventurous stuff, you know? Hell, if Rule 34 says anything-"

"Hey man, don't pull Rule 34 on me here," Rub replied with a wide grin.

"I'll pull it as much as it'll work, as it applies here up the wazoo," Aziz retorted.

"This chick's got something up the wazoo. I'm not sure what, but it definitely looks really up there," Basim noted amusedly as he looked up the cover of one DVD.

"Anyway, if it's possible to have an interest in, there's going to be porn in it, and we really shouldn't try to judge people poorly for it," Aziz said with a shrug.

"So you're saying I shouldn't think someone's sad for having a fetish where they get off watching people apply for boat loans?" Rub replied. This one seemed to get a stunned silence out of the room for a moment before all three broke out into laughter. It was hard to top Rub, but Basim looked to fire back accordingly.

"No, I think it's more sad that there would be enough of a community out there that takes part in that fetish to require the creation of an entire genre of films involving people applying for boat loans for the purpose of sale to people who pleasure themselves to people applying for boat loans," Basim replied.

"Dude, this is a pretty fucked up," Aziz replied with a laugh.

"Yeah, but it's better than being as fucked as we are," Basim responded with a shrug.

"Wouldn't mind getting fucked before this ended, might take the edge off of some things at the very least, right?" Rub said with raised eyebrows. He had found his way into a row of DVD's involving naughty schoolgirls that looked fairly promising.

"You offering man?" Aziz said jokingly as he grabbed his crotch, "'cause I'm always up for somethin' new if you know what I mean."

"Dude, gay," Rub laughed.

"I didn't hear no," Aziz responded.

"All right then, no," Rub said as he pulled free a stack of the naughty schoolgirl DVD's, "got some stuff here that looks pretty damn promising if you know what I mean."

"Now a bunch of guys sitting on a zebra-striped bed watching porno, that is totally not gay," Aziz laughed.

"Well if we were lucky we could get some chicks and at least even things out a bit," Rub replied with a chuckle as he looked to Basim, "hey man, think you could call Amanda over? Girl's always got Kendal attached at the hip, two of them between the three of us, we could do fine. Draw straws, loser gets to choose among the sloppy seconds or just jacks it in the corner."

Basim's smile and general good will seemed to falter for a moment. Rub looked to his friend and immediately knew that he had hit a sore spot, but didn't entirely feel bad for it. What had gone on between Basim and Amanda... well, not even Rub knew all of the details, and as far as he knew he was Basim's best friend. He also felt no need to apologize for how he behaved on the matter. What Basim kept to himself, he kept to himself, but Rub was not going to walk on eggshells if he didn't know what they looked like. _Guy got hung up on her real good, and then nothing. One day he thinks she's the greatest thing that ever lived, and the next he's goin' around her whenever her name's brought up. He did something, probably her, and he fucked something up real good._

As always in awkward situations, it was Aziz who broke up the potential awkwardness, "Speaking of which, have any of you got a cell phone signal since we got into the game? I can't get jack shit on mine."

"That's because your carrier sucks," Rub replied, "mine's fine. Can't get outside lines for shit, I tried calling out and just got a recorded government message saying that any more attempts to call out would get my neck jewelry to separate my head from my body. I could get an inside line alright though. Tried calling your phone when I got off the bus Basim, but it just got your voice mail so I gave up. By the way man, your phone's fucking off."

"Oh, right," Basim said as he shook his head, "do I really need to have it on?"

"It could help if we got separated or something," Rub responded, "except you Aziz, because your phone sucks ass."

"Fair enough, fair enough," Basim replied as he reached into his pocket and pulled free his cell phone. Turning it on, the boy found himself fairly surprised to see a large number of missed calls. The first couple were from his parents from a few days back (_probably just as you were kidnapped, damn_), there was one from Rub, and then a bunch from Isaac. Under the circumstances he was not surprised. As he looked at the sheer number of times that Isaac had tried to call and noticing a message in his voice mail, the boy felt a sick tightening in his stomach. _Oh shit, he's trying to do something again and he needs help. I've been walking around with this thing in my pocket turned off. Shit man, shit!_

Pressing the 'SEND' button, the boy quickly held the phone up to his ear.

"What's up?" Aziz asked with a fair amount of interest. Basim quickly shushed the other boy up as he held the phone to his ear. Rub knew better than to ask questions. Something was going down. By the look on Basim's face, it was going to be big too. _Shit man, looks like we ain't gonna have a chance at the porn after all. All this is going to waste? Now ain't that a crime?_

"Motherfucker," the boy muttered to himself.

_

* * *

I don't want this to be bad. I hold no illusions that it won't be, this is going to be quite bad I think, but I can still hold out some hope for humanity I guess._

The words echoed through the girl's mind, and much as she would have liked to ignore them she could not. It was easy to be cynical and believe there was bad in someone, but for someone so pure to have such faith in people... well, it was just hard to ignore. It was easy to hate, it was hard to have faith. Nevertheless, the girl did hate. As she wandered the abandoned town of Grover's Mill, the girl let hate consume her. Hate for the system that had allowed such an atrocity as this game to spring up. Hate for the people who wanted to actually play it. She just hated.

But hate could only get her so far; she needed to survive as well. In so doing, she had forced herself to take refuge in a small cottage at the end of a road, eating from her own backpack's supply and what she could scrounge from the house's small pantry. It wasn't much, but it was enough to help get her back in a properly thinking mood. It also gave her more time to hate.

And yet despite the hate, Rene Foucalt, a.k.a. Girl # 25, still feared. She had known fear since the earliest hours of the game when she was forced into the unfortunate position of last person to leave the bus. The battle between fear and hate for the girl was a fierce one, but one she was willing to live with. It kept her alert, and with any luck it would keep her alive. _Alive, right, alive when all you've got is some silly fucking little hammer when everyone else out there has guns, knives, bombs, sharp sticks... you're going to die, you do know that, right?_

"Merde."

It was bad. There was no way it couldn't be in a Battle Royale, but the girl still felt she had every right to be pissed off at it. And she was alone. She still didn't know how to feel about that strange sort of mixed blessing. On the plus side, at least none of her closer friends were in the game and would likely be spared a gruesome death, but on the downside she had no allies.

Allies. Would it actually be possible to find such a thing in the game? For all intents and purposes the girl did not want to believe it, but at the same time it was hard to deny the thought that they would be nice to have. But she knew no one that would have made a good ally. She wasn't close with any of the other cheerleaders, so they wouldn't have been all that trustworthy (_and let's face it, most of them are whores anyway_), and she didn't trust anyone in her class enough to simply go out wandering in the off chance that someone might appear to be a likely ally.

But there was still Chad Doerner, a.k.a. Boy # 25. He really did throw a wrench into things, didn't he? Fully prepared to hate, mistrust and otherwise write off her fellow contestants as a group of losers and psychopaths, Rene would not deny that Chad could have made a fairly good friend in here. But she didn't know him. Hell, barely anyone knew him. He was as much a mystery to her as he was to pretty much everyone else. Chad could only be counted on for being there and always having something to say without forcing you to listen to it, aside from that he was effectively a blank slate. Would that make him bad? Would that make him someone who's ultimately willing to do everything it takes despite a meek exterior? _No. Not him._

As she began to wash some dishes (_old habits die hard, even here_), the girl set down her hammer and allowed herself to further ponder the enigma that was Chad Doerner. The way he talked on the bus, Rene could not believe that there was any malicious bone in his body. He sincerely hoped for the best in people even in a game like this. People were dying, people were killing, and yet she was almost certain that he was off somewhere smiling hoping for a peaceful resolution to everything. Was that such a bad attitude to have really? _If he's right, then maybe everyone does have some good in them after all, and maybe something actually can be done about this game. Yeah, right, and monkey's are going to fly out of my ass and dance the polka._

Lost in thought for perhaps the first time in the entire game, the girl didn't hear the front door of the house slide open. Somehow she didn't even manage to hear the figure's heavy, shambling steps as they ambled across the floor (a miracle especially when considering their condition). She didn't hear much of anything really except the flow of warm water from the sink and her own internal monologue considering the nature of human evil and whether or not the game brings it out in everyone. She heard nothing.

She did however feel the hand as it grabbed her by the back of the neck. Rene could only register mild confusion before it quickly slammed her head against the rim of the sink. The whole world went dark for what felt like a very long time, although in reality it was no more than two seconds. Everything hurt, she vomited explosively and miserably into the sink as the figure behind her hit again. And again.

"Stop fighting," the voice practically hissed into her ear. Rene could feel the monster's breath, smell its rotten breath. _No._

The girl pushed off the counter, trying to turn around so she could actually fight. A freight train hit her in the back of the head, forcing her hard over the kitchen counter. She tried miserably to remember where she had set the hammer, but had no time to act. Another hit, the world going starry again as she lay bent over the kitchen's counter, and she feared losing consciousness. _Gotta fight, gotta get out, run, fight back, get this thing off and fi-_

A rough hand tore at her pants, and with wide-eyed horror the girl realized what was happening. She fought, lashing her arms out behind her. But her attacker was strong. He grabbed both of her hands, pinning them to her back with one hand and chuckling softly. He forced her down again, reaching between her legs with his free hand and toying with the fabric of her panties. She cried out, shrieking in some primal hope that it might summon hope. Instead, the massive boy behind her ripped her underwear free. She fought, she struggled, she even tried to kick out her feet from underneath in the hopes that it might help. It didn't.

"Don't worry," it hissed with a wet, pained chuckle, "I don't take too long."

She could feel him closer, trying to force his way in. _Oh god he's here, he's up, he's going to do it_. _Fight, get the hell out._ _Grab something, anything, just hurt him, hurt him, kill-_

Searing, tearing pain ripped through Rene's body as she was robbed of her virginity. She screamed louder than she could ever have recalled screaming, tears streaming down her face as she plead and hollered. The boy was merciless, pinning her to that kitchen counter as he violated her with wild abandon. Occasionally he would laugh, but more often than not he would just be grunting and breathing hard into her ear. He would call her things, but she couldn't make any of them out. She was focusing on the pain, but even more on the hate. The hate made the pain dimmer somehow, not gone, but brought it more into focus.

On one of his pulls back, one of the girl's pinned hands touched his stomach. She felt something wet, warm. He grunted in pain and slapped the back of her head. She could vaguely associate that he was injured, and that it felt bad. It felt like his entire stomach was coated in blood from that wound. Good. He was distracted, caught up in his violation too much to notice that his grip was slipping. _Next time he lets up, next time he gets close..._

He pulled her close again. His grip slipped. The girl acted. Shaking one of her hands free, Rene forced two of her fingers into the hole in the wounded boy's stomach. He stopped moving, too shocked by the action to make another move. It seemed as if all the air had been let out of his lungs, and that he was just waiting for another breath to scream. She wasn't going to give him that chance. With him off guard, she forced herself back, tearing two more fingers into the boy's stomach. He disengaged from her, screaming as she whirled around with her hand still in his stomach and finally got the chance to face him. She wasn't surprised to see that it was CJ Dartanian, a.k.a. Boy # 10. If there was one person who would give in to the game like this, it would be him. It looked like he'd been through hell, shot in the shoulder, clearly stabbed in the stomach. If he hadn't just been raping her, she might have been able to feel sorry for the boy. Instead, she looked down, looked at those pants around his ankles, looked at her blood on his... The hate consumed her as she forced him into the wall opposite, driving her entire hand into his wounded stomach as his scream reached an all new sort of frightening high-pitched agony.

Pulling her hand out, the girl watched fascinated as she pulled what looked like two feet of intestine out with it. The half-naked and horribly mutilated boy was the one crying now, blubbering in agony as he collapsed into the wall. He probably would have fallen over if his backpack hadn't been keeping him vertical. Mad with rage, tears streaming down her face, Rene found the hammer she had set aside on the counter just moments before. _You were stupid, if you had it, kept to your guard, none of this..._

The girl pulled up her pants, minding the throbbing pain between her legs, and grabbed her hammer. Even through her frightened, angry, tear streamed face, she could manage something resembling a smile. "Don't worry, I don't take too long."

She ran over to the downed boy, and even with one hand trying to pull his intestines back where they belonged he tried to fight. She was faster. With one quick swing, she pounded the boys cursed genitals into the floor. He tried to scream once, but that was overtaken either by pain or lack of air in his lungs as she swung again. And again. And again. The horrible thudding sound of her hammer took on a sick, wet sound as she obliterated all that he had been violating her with just moments before. She would have kept pounding forever if there were anything left, so instead she turned her weapon around and began working on his head. Pain, agony, hatred beyond anything she had ever known possible before seemed to flow forth from the claw end of the hammer as she beat miserably into his skull. At first he did manage to scream, but after the first few hits that would have been impossible. She battered him mercilessly, screaming, laughing, crying, she sounded like the mythical harpy as bits of his skull, blood and brain flew up around her with every hit. He was dead, she knew that much, but that wouldn't stop her from doing what she had to do.

After about ten minutes of brutalizing his remains, the girl collapsed beside the ruined boy with exhaustion. Everything hurt. Everything was red. But still she hated. There had been a time less than fifteen minutes before that she had begun to doubt the hate, but she vowed not to trust that instinct no more.

Chad had been wrong. There was no hope for humanity. CJ didn't have to rape her, he just did because no one would stop him. He just did what anyone would do if they were told that there were no rules. He attacked her, destroyed her, would have killed her... but she didn't let that happen. She killed him. Hate had allowed her to survive. Hate would allow her to survive.

With a primal scream, the girl slammed her hammer into what was left of CJ's skull one last time.


	23. Hour 12: 43 Contestants Remaining

**

* * *

Hour 12**

**43 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

At high noon, a squealing sound echoed across the town of Grover's Mill as the speakers were brought back to life for the midday report.

"Good afternoon Battle Royale contestants, this is your friend Banastare Tarleton coming to you live to update you on the status of your friends. Now, I must admit that the past several hours have seemed rather plodding and less action-packed than some, but I am sure you will all find a way to fix that in the near future. At any rate, here is the list of your friends in the order that they died. Girl # 21, Jessica Tyler, Boy # 15, Alan Wiles, Boy # 3, Eugene Chidester, and most recently the rather foul Boy # 10, CJ Dartanian. Now, for some general housekeeping announcements. We have had reports of airplanes attempting to tow banners over the game, and though we will do our best to shoot them down there is still every chance that one might fly over the game. We would like to ask that you please ignore any message that is delivered. Additionally, this one is not so much housekeeping as it is a bit of advice. We know that a lot of you are thinking that grouping up is a fine strategy for survival, and though it may get you further in the game, how long do you think that camaraderie will actually last? How much do you actually trust your friends?"

The Brit could be heard sipping from his tea, though none knew that the man was smiling.

"On that cheerful note, I must say continue fighting the good fight, killing your friends and classmates in the most brutal means imaginable! Good luck, and God bless America!"

With that, the peaceful strings of Johann Strauss' _Blue Danube_ began to echo throughout the abandoned town.

* * *

Randal Hudson, a.k.a. Boy # 19, was dying. Not literally of course, although it certainly felt it after running as long as he had. He was neither the fastest nor the spryest of his classmates, and at 325 pounds he would have made an excellent target. But he kept moving. He probably ran more in the first twelve hours of the Battle Royale than he had in his entire life, and it felt like hell. But he was still alive, and if running kept him alive, then he was all right. Staying in one place... that kind of scared him.

Randal wasn't a fighter. Never had been, probably never would be. He dressed in tie-dye and overalls, had hair in a ponytail almost down to his waist. He knew more of yelling at rallies and where to find the finest selection of cookies and cupcakes while high as a kite than he did about armed combat. The most he knew of guns was whatever he had seen in movies, and he only knew his to be a Beretta 9mm from the booklet that came with it. All his life he'd really done his best to avoid situations where he could get hurt. It wasn't the pain that was the problem, not really. At his size, he had been used to odd pains every so often (_not that that'll stop you from the buffet of course_), but no, it was the blood that really scared the boy. He could handle it in movies, on TV even, but in person... It was enough to both nauseate and scare the ever living hell out of the boy. _Wow, aren't you in the wrong game boy-o._

Running was beginning to take its toll. After twelve hours on his feet, trying to find some semblance of safety, if just to sit down for a few minutes, didn't sound too bad. Might have prevented a heart attack at the very least, right? At that he could only laugh. If there was one person who would die in a Battle Royale of natural causes, he'd probably be at the top of the list. _Ah well, so it goes._

At least now he had a mission; somewhere to go instead of just wandering around hoping to stay the hell out of the way. That much helped things make more sense at the very least. He was going to the church.

Again, he had to laugh. Randal had never stepped foot in a church once before in his life, and to do so for the purposes of this game felt downright like some strange sort of karmic symmetry. A practicing agnostic for as long as he was able to consider such things, if asked if he had a religion he would have probably told you 'Jedi'. He liked to believe that there may have been a higher force at work keeping all things in order, but at the same time was realistic enough to know that if there was he'd probably have no way of understanding it. _'course if there is some great force at work here, they really got one fucked up sense of humor, don't they?_

However, walking up Main Street looking for the cross street to the church, Randal was able to see something he did believe in. The sign was glowing marvelously in the sky, practically beckoning him over. It could be risky, there could already be someone inside, and it was unlikely that he was going to find what he was looking for... but it was worth a shot.

And so, Randal changed course and stormed enthusiastically through the front doors of Grover's Mill's only Big Kahuna Burger. _Two thick beef patties, cheese, onion, lettuce, tomato, pineapple and slathered in that sweet, sweet teriyaki sauce... Just try not to drool._

He wasn't expecting much. It would look just like any other Big Kahuna Burger out there, plastic tables and chairs, drink machines off to one end, counter at the head, kids play area away from the main dining hall filled with cheap-yet-corner-free play equipment (perfect for the lawsuit-prone USA). A lot of the houses seemed to be stocked with food, with any luck the restaurants would be too. He didn't expect much, but he did still have some hope.

Randal didn't expect the screams.

They were on the other side of the counter. Two girls by the sounds of it. He could see them disappear behind it, trying to be quiet. One briefly looked over, shaking with fear. He could see her eyes glowing under the harsh fluorescent fast-food restaurant lighting, and felt only confusion. _They scream, now they hide and look out for me. What the hell is this, a slasher movie?_

"Hello?" Randal called simply in an attempt to calm the girls down, "I won't hurt whoever's here, I'm not a bad guy." _Yeah, that sounds reeeal trustworthy man._

"Then put your gun away or get out of here please!" one of the girls called. Not an entirely odd request under the circumstances. But Randal wasn't stupid.

"Put your weapons on the table and put your hands in the air ladies, and then I'll put my gun away," he said.

"You swear?" the same girl asked.

"Of course," Randal replied. It was a stupid thing for the girls to ask (he could have easily been lying to them), but he didn't hold it against them. Under the circumstances, some people want to be more trusting than others, and he wasn't going to hold it against them. The girl who had been talking set a police baton on the table. With shaking hands, the other placed a rubber chicken upon it. Randal tried his hardest not to burst out laughing.

The two girls stood with their hands above their heads almost in unison. All too quickly it all made sense to Randal. Their questions were stupid, because they were stupid. No, stupid was the wrong word (if that were the case then they'd probably be in the special classes). No, they weren't stupid, they were just... ditzes.

Randal didn't know Cynthia Argento, a.k.a. Girl # 12, and Diana Halsey, a.k.a. Girl # 13, personally, but he kept enough in the loop to know who they were. Both on the cheerleading squad, both strikingly beautiful, both popular... But they were ditzes. Neither seemed all that interested in their studies, and more often than not he knew their presence from the stupid questions from the back of the class. They were basically in every circle that Randal did his best to avoid, and here he was with the advantage over them. Still...

The boy pocketed his gun, showing his open hands to the girls.

"Like I said, I'm not one of the bad guys here."

"What do you want?" Diana asked. She had been the one questioning him from behind the counter, now looking at him with her piercing green eyes. Of the two, Randal had always found Diana to be the prettiest. She had more of a gymnast's frame than Cynthia, and her piercing green eyes were made all the more brilliant against her dark African-American complexion. Of the two, she also always seemed to be the smartest.

"I'm just making my way around here, thought I'd see if I could grab a burger."

"There's no burgers here, we checked," Cynthia said harshly. Her bravado was false, even he could tell that she was terrified. They both were. _Great, you've been put in the hero spot now, haven't you? These girls stand for everything you don't, they're dumb as fence posts, and now you're the one in charge, right?_

It seemed odd that these girls of all people had chosen to stay away from the main group of people joining up at the church. At that thought, an idea suddenly struck Randal. "Hey, you guys haven't by any chance gotten any phone calls recently, have you?"

"No," Diana said, "I've been grounded, my parents took my phone last week."

Cynthia shook her head, "Battery's dead."

"What does it matter anyway, we can't call out of here on them, right?" Diana added.

Randal looked around, thought hard. Were these really the kind of people that Isaac would want for his crazy attempt at a revolution? _But what could they really do on their own? Like this they're sitting ducks, someone's going to pick them off sooner or later. Hell, they wound up hiding out in a place that's almost entirely surrounded by giant display windows. It'd be like advertising them at a butcher's shop!_

He didn't know if they were invited or not, but to Randal that did not matter. These girls wouldn't last more than a few more hours playing things the way they were.

"You girls wanna get out of here?"

* * *

It was... glorious. He had never seen anything like it, though he had always dreamed of the day when the chance would come up. The fire was overtaking the house, the kitchen already a flaming crater in its side. The boy didn't know how it started, nor did he care. He watched as windows crackled and burst one at a time, the pillar of smoke billowing high into the sky. The heat was almost blistering even on the other side of the street. Wind had brought some flaming embers to the house on the left. With some luck, it would go up too. Maybe even the whole street, the whole town?

Beautiful. Positively beautiful.

But it still wasn't enough for Nick McIntyre, a.k.a. Boy # 24. God could be trusted to do only so much, but the rest... well the rest would take some help now, wouldn't it?

The boy was armed to the teeth. A cameraman's belt, meant to hold lenses of varying sizes, was stretched across his chest. Instead of lenses, it was filled with pipe bombs. True, if someone were to shoot him in the chest he would probably explode, but it was a risk worth taking. Any shot to the chest was bound to be fatal anyway, right? They were low yield, minimum property damage sorts of affairs. But against people, well, they would be something marvelous. Blow off limbs, feet, fill people with ragged chunks of metal and glass. Probably wouldn't kill, but they would make them wish they were dead... That thought made him happy.

Holding his gun casually at his side, the boy darted into the next house on the left. Like the rest of the houses in this marvelous game, it was empty. Well, of course there was no guarantee of that, but Nick was fairly certain of his safety. People, most people at least, tended to try to get the hell away from fire. A primal instinct. But they did not know it's true nature; how to tame it, respect it, love it. They would always fear fire. He would always be drawn to it.

He found the kitchen easily. Moving the oven... was not as simple a task. The boy was short, skinny, and though he was strong for his size he still had little in the way of strength. Wrestling with the oven took about five minutes, sweat breaking out on his forehead as he strained every muscle. The clunky appliance shrieked and squealed as its feet dragged across the floor, but he got it where he wanted it. Two feet from the wall, enough to squeeze behind, tear free the gas line, and then get running...

The boy smiled, and was not surprised in the slightest that he had a raging hard-on. He would take care of that in due time while watching it all burn, but it would have to wait. There were a lot of houses on this street, a lot of gas lines to tear out. People might be in some of them, but he would do away with them as needed. The street, the town, all would burn.

It would be glorious.

* * *

It was like something out of a horror movie. Not that the girl had ever seen a horror movie (_way too gross_), but in her imagination it was pretty much what she thought one would look like. The kitchen might have been cheery at one point, the girl stood in the middle of it, it was bathed in gore. Blood ran red over every surface, with dark chunks of stuff she didn't want to know surrounding the body. It was fresh enough that the blood still dripped from some surfaces. The boy's head was gone, and someone had savaged his midsection. Gutted him. Destroyed his crotch. The thick smells of blood and vomit mixed the room.

The girl should have thrown up, should have been terrified of the whole scene. But Phoebe Valverde, a.k.a. Girl # 11, was too determined to stay disgusted for long. She had to survive, there was just no other way around it. _Deal with it._

Competition was a concept that Phoebe understood on an almost instinctual level. From birth she had been raised to live on the pageantry circuit, and though some would cry for their lost childhood and call the process degrading and demeaning, Phoebe knew better. They were weak. She was strong. They would fail. She would prevail. In order to win competitions, one had to understand the difference between strength and weakness. Phoebe understood these concepts implicitly.

No matter the situation, everyone had a particular amount of strength. Sure, some clearly have more than others, but even in the worst of times most people have a store that they can draw upon in an attempt to survive. Most. Most people have strength, but everyone has a weakness. This Phoebe knew, and this she was hoping her best she could exploit. Too many times she had seen girls collapse under intense pressure, suffer nervous breakdowns at the prospects of mere pageants. Amateurs. They could not deal with it.

The Battle Royale was not a pageant, this she would not deny. It was certainly harder, and even she had given into weakness in its earlier hours. She had been scared. Maybe even cried a little when it was dark and everything seemed hopeless. She had even shacked up with some wannabe revolutionaries at the bowling alley who honestly thought they could survive by joining up in the biggest group possible. They just couldn't see how things were supposed to work. They could not deal with it.

So she had separated herself from the group and struck out on her own. It was hard, it was cold, but it wasn't unbearable. Not entirely at least. She had been provided with a bulletproof vest, and that gave her a certain amount of confidence in her chances at survival. A weapon would be even better, but she had a plan about that as well. She would follow the gunshots, the screams, the explosions. Sneak around as well as she could, and then try to find something usable in the wake of the fights. It wasn't a foolproof strategy, not in the slightest, but it do. Until she could get a weapon, she was basically useless. Without a weapon, she was weak. That would not do.

There had been screams in the residential district, and Phoebe had followed them. They went on for nearly two minutes. Easy to follow. Frankly she was amazed that no one else was following them as well. _Their loss._

She found the house, but by then the screams had stopped. She watched the building with hesitation, waiting to see if there were anyone still around inside. Not but two minutes later, she watched the blood-drenched Rene Foucalt, a.k.a. Girl # 25, stumble away. She had been crying, her clothes looked tattered. She had been attacked, but she had won.

And so Phoebe found herself standing over the remains of CJ Dartanian, a.k.a. Boy # 10. With CJ's pants around his ankles, the story was easy to tell. He had been weak. He could not deal with it. He gave in to the moment, took on his primal urges and thought he could prevail. But Rene was stronger. But was she smarter?

Holding a hand over her mouth to cut down the stench of the body, Rene crept behind CJ's mutilated body. He was still wearing his pack. The zipper caught when she first tried to pull at it, but with a little jimmying it pulled free. _Yes. Rene may have been strong, but she most certainly was not smart..._

Phoebe pulled the CZ-75 pistol from CJ's pack with a feeling a lot like reverence. Learning to use it would take some time, but the girl had little fear of killing another. Finding the extra bullets stashed in the pack, the girl could only smile. _The game is mine._

* * *

Mallory Bell was a whore.

That thought was all that managed to comfort Madison Holland, a.k.a. Girl # 14. Nobody had called. Nobody but _her._ Nobody was wondering how she was doing, nobody was going to look to her for advice or council. Nobody. She should have been scared, but instead she was angry. Pissed even. And even that much allowed Madison some level of solace. As long as there was someone out there worse than her, then she could be in control. Thankfully as far as she was concerned, _everyone _was worse than her. That would always net some form of control, no matter how minor it may be.

They should have gotten together from the start. Sure, Kimberly wasn't even in the game, and Zora died on the bus, but at least the three of them could've gotten together. Her, Nicole, Natalya, they could have formed a gang. Maybe brought in a couple of the girls who had wanted to be in their clique, get some guns between them and work on clearing out the threats. Then she would have sewn the seeds of distrust, worked the girls against each other while making them think that she was their best friend, then watch as they all fell down. It would have been perfect...

And instead, she was alone. They weren't calling for her. They weren't looking for her to lead them. She was alone.

_They're all whores._

So she would have to call them. She wouldn't beg. She wouldn't grovel. She would just reach out and call upon those she could use. But it was a short list if she wanted those who thought they could trust her. Kimberly was out of the game. Zora died on the bus. If the announcements were accurate (and she had no reason to believe otherwise), Nicole had died early on as well. And that left Natalya.

Natalya. Sure, she was a slut, but she was good as far as Madison was concerned. She knew how to pay tribute and stay out of the way, and so she was spared Madison's wrath. But she had not called. She had not called looking for her friend. Her _leader._ Was something wrong? Was she dead? No, there was no announcement. No call across the vast frozen planes stating that her friend had died.

Pulling out her cell phone, Madison made a call.

* * *

Natalya Serov, a.k.a. Girl # 8, knew she was going to die. There was no way in hell that she was going to win with the other people involved in the game. Sure, she could keep a low profile, and that may even take her far, but it would not allow for a win. She'd been assigned a volleyball, and as a weapon that was a joke. Sure, she had picked up a fireplace poker since then, but that was only so good as a weapon. There were people with guns, bombs, knives, and they knew how to use them. She could only last so long. Still... she could've used one good fuck before it all ended. _Go out with a bang, right? Ah well. So is life._

The halls of Grover's Mill High School were frightening, but all the same felt fairly safe. She wandered through them with her fireplace poker held high, looking for a safe place within to hide out. With any luck, the structure could prove safe for a very long time. _Who else would want to hang out at a school? Perfect shelter? Maybe. Maybe not. But for now it'll probably do._

The vibrating on her right hip shocked the girl out of thought. With a frightened yelp, she swung the poker around and dented a locker with a deafening echo. _Just the phone, relax girl, don't worry, just your phone._

The girl pulled the phone from her pocket and opened it with a practiced flip, "Hello?"

"Hey Nat, it's Madison, where the fuck are you?"

"Hey Madison..." Natalya said with some confusion. While she may have liked Madison Holland more than most other girls in school, she was not sure that she wanted to spend the rest of her life putting up with the other girl's crap. Everything was a battle for Madison, everything was a grab for power. In this game that was fine, maybe even admirable, but Natalya didn't know if she had it in her to deal with it for the course of the game.

"Hey yourself, where've you been?" Madison was clearly angry.

"Wandering, staying out of trouble, you?"

"Been locked up in one of the hicktown trailers here. Get your ass on over here to the trailer park now, all right?"

Turning a corner in the hall, Natalya could see that it was clear. She had seen the trailer park earlier in the morning but had decided against hiding out within it. Had it not been on the other side of town, she may even have made an effort to go and join Madison. She may have been a bitch, but they were still friends. She may even have been able to deal with the shit. But it was a hike, and the school did look pretty safe.

"Sorry, I'm in a pretty good spot right here. I'm at the high school, why don't you come on down? I got it pretty safe here," Natalya said with the faintest hope that Madison wouldn't be interested.

"All the way out there, fuck that, just get over here all right, we really need to team up." Madison's insistence was beginning to make Natalya suspicious. Had she not turned the next short corner, she would have been even more worried about her friends intention. Instead, upon turning the corner Natalya was greeted by a sight that made her scream in horror.

There was a body hanging in the middle of the hallway by a fire hose. A girl. She had been mutilated beyond recognition, her face a mess beneath her blonde hair, a pile of intestines coiled beneath like a thick snake. Someone had attacked her, hanged her, gutted her. Taken by revulsion and terror, Natalya bent double in fear and vomited explosively on the floor.

She barely heard the heavy steps running her way.

Glancing idly up unconsciously to look at the body once more, Natalya was able to see the massive and terrifying frame of Sadie Bourne, a.k.a. Girl # 16, running her way. The girl looked like she had been through hell, greasy hair running down her face, blood drenching the front of her parka. Natalya might have held a sense of pity if the girl hadn't looked like a wild animal, her mouth drawn back in a savage grimace and holding an ice ax over her head in an attempt to strike. Though her body was still overtaken by the strength of her revulsion, the fear was strong enough to shock her back into her senses. She raised the fireplace poker up defensively just in time to deflect Sadie's first blow. _You're not stronger than this girl, she's got more than a hundred pounds on you and is pissed off to no end. If you can beat her, you gotta outrun her._

Natalya jumped to her feet, vaguely aware that she crushed the cell phone Madison was still shrieking out of. With one quick strike, she hit Sadie in the chest hard with the fireplace poker. It was enough to take the larger girl off guard, and she took her chance. Noticing the end of the hall beyond the hanging body, Natalya sprinted toward it. Sadie wasn't very far behind, taking off like a rhino, smashing off a row of lockers and swinging her weapon wildly. Sadie's speed had surprised Natalya, and after two seconds she came to the realization that the fat girl would catch up. _Shit._

Letting the survival instinct kick in, Natalya grabbed for the mangled body hanging from the ceiling and swung it at her pursuer. The body hit Sadie hard, knocking her off balance. The girl hit the floor with a thud, and Natalya never once looked back. She sprinted for the exit, every bit of adrenaline she could muster coursing through her system and pushing her further. She slammed through the outer door, briefly looking over her shoulder to make sure she wasn't still being pursued. Sadie was struggling on the floor, wrapped grotesquely in the intestines of Nicole Baldwin, a.k.a. Girl # 17. She would get free soon, her fury would make sure of that, but Natalya wasn't going to give her a chance to catch up.

She sprinted through the snow, hoping that by the time Sadie had regained her footing that there would be a few miles between the two of them.

For a while she considered heading to the trailer park in the hopes of finding Madison. Instead, she took off in no particular direction. _Madison can take care of herself._


	24. Behind The Scenes: Hour 12

* * *

**Hour 12**

**Behind the Scenes**

* * *

The catering situation still hadn't improved. Perhaps the fact that this was mostly a military operation was to blame. They had the budget and manpower enough to move heaven and earth should they want to, but still had to go through various levels of bureaucracy when it came to getting civilian personnel into the game facilities. Sir Banastare Tarleton would not have minded in the slightest to pay cash out of his own pocket to bring a professional catering staff to cook for the base personnel, but no, it would be a security hazard. It was difficult enough to get The Dirty Dozen (well, Dirty Eleven now) involved, but their skill was more than enough to get them cleared. Cooking staff on the other hand... well, he would have to make do with what the United States Army chow officers could manage.

Taking a bite from the rather uninspired BLT that had been delivered to him in Col. Morton Kinsey's office, Tarleton did his best to suppress a laugh.

"So I'm boring now, am I?" Tarleton said with a suppressed grin.

"That's what test audiences are saying," Kinsey responded. He dug into the plate of food that had been delivered with certain gusto. Seemed he didn't have any problem with it.

"Well isn't that rich?" Tarleton responded with a laugh.

"You know you could take this a bit more seriously. You've done wonders for the program Banastare, but the announcer has always been an integral part of the show."

"I'm sorry if that's a problem Colonel, but I am doing the best I can under the circumstances. I do have responsibilities that take up more time you know. I mean, if you were to find someone who could do a better job announcing, be my guest."

"You know we're not asking you to do that," Kinsey shot back, "and besides, who else has the balls to take the job?"

"Exactly," Tarleton responded smugly.

"But people know you as the bad boy, you might want to work up that angle some more. Try and inject _some _personality into the show. They used to love you on _America's Next One Hit Wonder,_ why not try to work up the evil judge angle some more?"

Tarleton scowled internally, but tried not to let it show. He would rather have nothing to do with that travesty of a show again if he could help it as it was one of the most miserable experiences of his professional career. _Anything for ratings though, correct?_

"I'll play around with the next announcement more, give those ravenous wolves out there more of what they want," Tarleton said with a rather forced smile, "is there anything else I should take under consideration."

"Well..." Kinsey said with the greatest hesitation, "there is one concern that the networks have been commenting on that we want to throw your way."

"And that is?"

"I know you fought to keep the details of contestant's deaths a secret during the announcements, but the networks have said that by announcing who killed whom it adds to the interpersonal drama. Would it really damage the game that much if you were to reveal that information?" Kinsey asked.

Tarleton knew that the Colonel had every right to do whatever he wanted with the game, and that actually asking was a sign of great respect. And most of the time he was more than willing to comply with what the colonel wanted. When Kinsey had asked him to cut down on his English accent for the Florida game, The Brit as he was asked. The American public had grown weary of England after their condemnation of the Battle Royale program (seems they were upset at a British national being killed during the third season), and Tarleton kept his allegiances clear. Though he was a British national, he made it plainly known that he was an American patriot. This issue, however, was one that he would not budge on.

"I do believe that it would damage the game, yes, and I think it would still be in our best interests to keep these details secret from the players. Would you like me to explain why?" Tarleton replied.

"Please," Kinsey responded pleasantly.

"Well, it is true that in past games the announcements of killers in addition to those who have been killed has added to the drama of the game, as it allowed players to fear certain individuals and boost the celebrity of the better players. However, after a while, it makes things boring. The celebrity, the homicide, they do not make the game great. It is the unknown aspect of the interpersonal drama that makes the game great."

The producer took another bite from his sandwich with a grimace, then continued, "And announcing details such as who-killed-who-and-how removes that. Contestants no longer have to worry about who they can and cannot trust because we tell them as much. There have been players in the game, hell, players in _this _game who are trying for an undercover approach. We have people within that group amassing at the church right now that are killers who may very well decide to erode at our little insurrection from within. Take Mr. Luczak for example. He has proven to be every bit a psychopath, a lunatic, and here he is chumming it up with the rest of them. He has shown that he has the madness that could make him an amazing killer if given the right opportunity, and the right opportunity for him is a low profile. If we are lucky, he can tear that group apart and will do so in a stealthy manner that will shift the blame from him and put it on others. We will have contestants attacking one another out of blatant fear and mistrust, the innocent and the guilty hurling accusations and if we are lucky bullets at one another because they do not know that there is a murderer in their midst. Please Colonel, Morton, we need this."

The Colonel looked long and hard to at The Brit. He made excellent points. Hell, he always made excellent points. That was why they'd hired him after all. Mistrust had always yielded some of the game's greatest moments. Couples killing each other once they realize how far they've gone. Friends realizing what their friendships are really made of. Hell, every game seemed to have an identical group of popularity-obsessed teenage girls who claimed to be in it for the group until one snaps and winds up massacring them all (the cliché had been dubbed 'Lighthouse Girl Syndrome' after a group of girls in the Massachusetts game turned on one another in one of the most notorious massacres in the American program's history). Death causes mistrust among the masses, and without knowing who had it in them to be a killer there would always be mistrust.

"All right, fair enough Banastare. We'll keep things going as they have been. For now." The Colonel's voice was warning, harsh. Tarleton couldn't have cared less. The show was still his, and it would go on.

"Though let me ask you one more thing, if that would be all right," Kinsey added.

"Of course."

"Say you're wrong about this. Say these insurgents in the church really are going to stick together and not turn upon one another. Do you honestly have a plan for what is going to happen then?"

Tarleton smiled at the remark, lines of age stretching across his face as he did. Of course he had a plan. He always had a plan. There was never any doubt that that little troublemaker Freemantle was going to try and gather a group together in the hopes of either escaping or waging a war from within. He would gather them, and he would put them all in one place like sheep being led to the slaughter. True, there was initially considered to be a statistical possibility that Freemantle might just decide to go homicidal, survive at all costs by killing the remainder of his classmates. So Tarleton had sweetened the deal. The tracking device in Freemantle's bag had been a stroke of genius, particularly after loading it with information regarding potential escape routes and collar schematics. Almost all of the information was bogus, but there was no need for Freemantle to know it. He just needed to have hope for escape. With hope for escape, he would be gathering people. If he gathered enough people, there was every chance for a massacre the size of which the game had never seen before.

And even if there weren't any players within the church who had the wherewithal to try and perpetrate such a slaughter, well... there was always the cellular phone in Tarleton's pocket. Dialing one number he could easily bring about a bloodbath the likes of which had never been seen before.

"Yes," Tarleton said with a wolf-like smile, "yes I do."

* * *

There had been little movement around the Briar Patch's perimeter since Iago Cilek, a.k.a. Boy # 21, had wandered by and waved. Sgt. Barry Charon had taken particular glee in waving back to the boy, and Pvt. Roger Toynbee hadn't done a thing about it. They were not supposed to interact with the contestants in any way, shape or form unless they tried to make a break for it. Too many times in the past personnel had slipped vital information into the game simply by accident. Maintenance crews accidentally leaving tools or schematics behind, soldiers misplacing firearms or explosives within game perimeters. Their interference had led to many attempted escapes and massacres that would not have otherwise been if it weren't for their involvement, and they'd all gotten hell for it.

But Charon didn't seem to mind too much. It was one of the man's many less than charming features that made his presence unbearable. He was the "celebrity" in their outfit, and he behaved as such. _Celebrity, Christ, the guy probably couldn't even spell that word if he wanted to._ And for some reason Toynbee couldn't fathom, nobody seemed to be all that interested in punishing the soldier. He was a liability, a loose cannon, potentially dangerous. He deserved a court martial, or maybe even a trip to the gallows. But instead he was still around, still taking up space and making a mockery of everything they were about.

"At least relief's coming soon," the soldier muttered to himself as he looked out the windows facing away from the town. Charon and Pvt. Stephen Dietrich, the other of their merry band of snipers, were outside with their rifles facing away from town. There had been numerous disturbances along the outer perimeter near the forest by wandering herds of deer, and the alarms they had tripped had annoyed Charon to no end. After the fourth alarm had been set off in their tower, he had dragged Dietrich out back to focus on "thinning the herd", leaving the town effectively undefended from their angle. True, there were enough safeguards and backup defenses to take care of potential escapees that it really didn't matter what they were doing, but they were still slacking off. Taking pot-shots at deer was not a part of their job description.

Relief was coming. They'd done twelve hours on, relief would be welcome. Hot chow, fresh beds to sleep on. Things could definitely be worse. _Then again, you're probably going to be the one drawing short stick. They'll head off back to base, grab real food and real beds, you get the cot down here while the replacements are probably drawing things on you in your sleep. Awesome, awesome times._

He could hear a loud cracking sound, and Charon's loud, enthusiastic wooping. The two snipers reentered the tower, Charon looking like he had just won the Super Bowl, and Toynbee fairly amused.

"Got 'im, hit 'im right between the eyes, didn't I? That's a ten point buck if I've ever seen one before!" Charon practically shouted.

"I think you just killed Bambi's mom," Dietrich responded simply.

"Just one shot and he was down too, I'm a god-damned killing machine if I must say so myself," Charon continued.

"Or maybe it was just Bambi," Dietrich replied with an amused smile.

A look of almost crazed glee crossed Charon's face, "Say, I got an idea boys..."

* * *

The snowmobile crossed the frozen plain between the sniper's towers and the forest. Had its two occupants not been better dressed, they would have been freezing. Instead, their irritation came from the task at hand. The distance was no more than a quarter of a mile, but the terrain slowed them down considerably. To top it off, Dietrich could not exactly remember where Charon had shot the deer, and they'd spent nearly twenty minutes searching along the tree line for a vague idea of where the deer may be.

It was a mess. Hell, it was stupid. If they got caught, they'd be in trouble. Big trouble. Not hanging trouble, but maybe public flogging level trouble. They shouldn't have been out there, but Charon pulled rank, and they did as they were told. It was still stupid. Then again, stupid and Charon often went hand in hand.

"All this so he can get him a fucking trophy head, this is low man," Dietrich complained as he pulled the snowmobile to a stop by the tree line. There was no blood on the ground, no real indication of where the deer was or might have been. The two soldiers unsaddled from the vehicle, sniper rifles held casually as they surveyed the tree line. _Not a god damned sign of anything._

"It's a wild goose chase," Toynbee agreed.

"On the plus side, we got Charon out of our hair for a while," Dietrich said with a wide grin. He reached into his pocket and pulled free a joint. The soldier placed it between his lips and lit up.

"You know they say that stuff gives you mouth cancer?" Toynbee joked. This was against regulations, but it was something he could forgive. Dietrich was good as far as Toynbee was concerned, some indiscretions on his part he was willing to excuse. _Besides, anything to take the edge off of this, right?_

"So what are we gonna do Dietrich?"

The other soldier puffed out a small cloud of smoke, wincing as he looked off into the forest. Couldn't see a damn thing, but at least the joint was good. Typically he would've tried to share the wealth of high quality drugs in his possession, but knowing Toynbee as a straight arrow he never even tried.

"I say we split up. Scavenge through the tree line here, see if we can't find Bambi and get our asses back to the tower. We're getting relief soon and come hell or high water am I gonna miss out on it. You go north, I'll take south. We circle around this little grove here, meet up in the middle. See any blood, signs, body, we call out, all right?"

"Gotcha," Toynbee responded, holding his rifle high and beginning his hike through the tree line. The soldier could only feel an odd sense of fear around the forest's edge, but he fought through it. The great outdoors had never really called to the man in his youth, something about being lost within a heavily forested area always gave him a distinct sense of fear. _Like you're being hunted, right? Monsters in the woods, all out to get you, surrounding you, thirsting for your blood. Ready to grind your bones into bread. Yeah, daddy would really love to hear all that, wouldn't he?_

As he continued making his round of the small grove, Toynbee began to wish for Dietrich to call out. Anything was better than being trapped with his own thoughts. Especially about his father.

It was all his fault really. All of this. Toynbee was a patriot, born and raised, and he believed in America's greatness. That much he knew, and that much he would've known even without it being forced down his throat every day. But the military, that was all his father's fault. Toynbee was an intelligent boy. Hardly Ivy League material, but if had he ever found the motivation to further his studies he might have had a chance at a few scholarships, maybe even found his way into a half-decent out of state college where he really would have been able to flourish. But no, no, there was that terrible siren's call of the small town. That call saying that he would never amount to anything and shouldn't even try. It left him restless, but without any motivation or direction. Every day he would see his father and his redneck buddies drinking and shooting the shit down at the bar. Every day he would see his own friends devolving ever closer into similar hopeless individuals. Every day he would look in the mirror and feel the distinct terror that he was becoming his father.

He wanted out, but there was no easy way to do it. For the longest time he considered scraping together all the cash he could and thumbing his way down the road, maybe head out to California or New York or Miami, see where fate would take him and hope for the best. But again, that siren's call held him back. Familiarity was comforting, the strange, the new, it held enough terror in the boy that he could not leave.

And then came the day he'd made his dad proud. He joined the Army. _Serve the country dad, do something great with my life instead of being a lazy fuck son of a bitch like you. So what if it was your idea, it's done me good, it's going to do me more good than it could ever do you, and once I'm out of this fucking program and my service is up, I am going to make something of myself. Fuck you dad, fuck you Battle Royale. Just fuck everythi-_

Twigs snapping. The soldier whirled around, rifle high. Nothing. Only trees. Dark trees, standing tall and dark all around him. No sounds of life, no blood. No deer. No deer, but definitely fear. The wind was picking up, shaking the trees, whistling past his ears. _Get back to the snowmobile. Get the hell out of here._

The wind picked up, almost howling. Toynbee started to plod through the snow, trying to run. He didn't know how long he'd walked or where the hell he was, just that he wanted out. But there was sound in the wind. Subtle, but it was there. It took him a few moments to recognize, and when he did it stopped him cold.

Laughter.

Children's laughter.

Was it the wind, the mind, or something more?

Wind beginning to howl, scream through the trees almost, Toynbee could hear the laughter growing louder. There were voices in the laughter, soft, almost whispering to one another, all talking to one another with a sense of frightening glee that terrified the soldier.

"_Kill him..."_

"_You know how..."_

"_Slit your throat..."_

"_Awww, he's just a baby..."_

"_Kill him..."_

"_Dance in your blood like a pig's..."_

"_It's easy..."_

"_Can we keep him?"_

"_Kill him..."_

"_He's scared..."_

"_Eat his tongue..."_

"_Kill him..."_

"_Do it..."_

"_Gonna make you pay, you gonna pay..."_

"_Eat his eyes..."_

"_One by one we'll take you all..."_

"_Eat his balls!"_

"_Kill him..."_

The voices were everywhere and nowhere, surrounding him and seeming to come from the wind itself. The soldier closed his eyes. _It's not real, it's not real, none of this is real. This is all in your head, just some vivid, waking, fucked up nightmare. Just stay cool, stay cool, stay cool..._

More twigs snapping, close. Toynbee swung around with a yelp and his rifle held high. He meant to kill.

"Jesus man, don't shoot!" Dietrich yelled in fear. The other sniper held a dead deer, a small one by the looks of things, over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. His face had been one of almost good cheer just moments before, and now he feared for his life. Toynbee lowered his rifle warily, hands shaking. _Christ, what the hell just happened?_

"You all right?" Dietrich asked warily.

"I'm fine," Toynbee replied too quickly, then slowing, "I'm fine. I just got... I just got one helluva scare."

"You and me both," Dietrich responded with a cocky smile, still shaking, "I nearly shit myself there you little sonofabitch."

"Sorry man," Toynbee responded as he finally let himself calm down. He looked to the deer, forced a smile, "So it was Bambi after all?"

Dietrich laughed back, fear gone, confidence returned, "Yeah, yeah. Let's load this sucker up on the snowmobile and get back to the tower. Get warm, see if we can grab some of Charon's shitty coffee, right?"

The fear averted, their prize captured, the two soldiers walked back to their snowmobile. They joked with each other, calling each other and Charon all sorts of names as only young men can do.

* * *

The trees were full of eyes. They watched gleefully as the soldiers returned to base. It was too early still, but they fully meant to make good on their promises to Toynbee.


	25. Hour 13: 43 Contestants Remaining

**

* * *

Hour 13**

**43 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

The room was bright pink, and that suited Kendal just fine. She liked pink. She'd been raised as a girly girl, ribbons in her hair when she was young, quality makeup when she was older. Pink had always been there. Pink walls, pink carpet, pink bed practically covered in teddy bears (though most of them weren't pink). With that much pink, Kendal was at times amazed that she and Amanda had even remained friends. Amanda hated pink. She was girly, none of that ultra-feminist sort of bullshit that Kendal found so hard to swallow, but for some reason Amanda just didn't like the color. It wasn't a major issue in the grand scheme of things, and wasn't one that Kendal put a lot of thought into either. Then again, lack of thought was a fairly common trait for Kendal Fuchs.

The two girls lay propped out on the floor in their pajamas, munching from a bag of chips and trying to fight their way through a trig textbook. Kendal had the latest Kelsey Starr CD blaring in the background, which complimented the posters of pop stars that practically covered the walls rather nicely. Had it not been for the homework, it would have been a pretty nice girl's night.

"Ugh," Kendal said as she closed the book dramatically, "I hate math."

"And social studies," Amanda added jokingly.

"And science," Kendal said finally.

"What does that leave then?"

"Language Arts, but that sucks pretty hard too. Kinda blew that parenting class, right?"

Amanda shrugged, "No more than anyone expected. Whatever happened to that egg?"

"I kept it in the fridge so it wouldn't stink things up, but I didn't keep it separate. I think my dad ate it."

"So you'll never win mother of the year, big deal," Amanda joked.

"And health."

"What?"

"Health class too. Hated that one," Kendal added as she tried to remember classes off the top of her head. Amanda would never let her forget the fact that she confused the ovaries and tonsils on the final.

"I like cheerleading at least, does that count as a class?" Kendal asked hopefully.

Amanda rolled her eyes theatrically as she often did when the subject of cheerleading came up. "No, don't think so."

"Oh, right," Kendal replied. Amanda dove back into her textbook, looking rather distracted as she forced herself into a particularly troublesome math problem. Once again, the room went silent. Kendal looked to her best friend, trying to think of something to say and drawing a complete blank. There were not many occasions that she felt frustrated by her own intellectual limitations, but when she did, she was utterly confused. It was not that she was a stupid girl, she just had a hard time applying herself when it came to the academic realm. Amanda was similar, but Kendal had long known her to be a lot more intelligent than she would admit. That was just Amanda's thing. She played the ditz part with the rest; she slept around and enjoyed every minute of it. She had a way of fooling everyone into thinking that she was just a pretty face with the body of a pornstar, but not Kendal. Kendal may not have been an academic, but she had a pretty good read on people. She knew when Amanda was putting on a front for other people, and even more when she was putting on a front in private.

"So what's going on with you?" Kendal asked suddenly.

"I'm stuck in this damn book just like you are," Amanda replied without missing a beat.

Going over to her CD player and switching it off, Kendal continued, "No, I mean with you. Your head's about as far away from that book as mine is, only you can't make the I-don't-get-it excuse for it. Seriously girl, what's going on?"

"Nothing," Amanda replied with an attempt at finality.

Kendal laughed softly. It was going to be harder than she thought, "How long have we known each other?"

Amanda lifted her head from the book, rolled her eyes up for a moment, "Second grade I think. Maybe first. Why?"

"It just means, like, we've known each other long enough that I know when something's up with my bff. Seriously girl, your head's not into this whole study night any more than mine is. What's going on?"

A pained look had crossed Amanda's face. She bit her lip, looking like she was having a seriously hard time getting out what she needed to get out.

"Basim called me."

"When?" Kendal asked in a slightly angered tone. She still never fully understood what had gone down between Amanda and Basim last month, and she didn't really want to. The two of them had been friends for about as long as Kendal could remember, and despite her promiscuous nature it wasn't hard to tell that Amanda had always had a crush on Basim. Then something had happened, and Amanda was suddenly a lot less fun to be around. _Thought we'd just gotten over this, thought she'd just gotten over this, and here he comes messing everything up again. Son of a bitch._

"Just before you got here," Amanda responded.

"Please tell me you just showed him the door and hung up on his sorry ass."

"No, we just talked..."

"He apologize?"

"No. He doesn't have anything to apologize for. I'm the one who fucked everything up," Amanda said with a quiver in her voice. Kendal could see that she was trying to force back tears. It would have been the right thing to do to just try and comfort her, but when it came to Basim... well, Kendal probably had a lot more excess anger than she should've.

"Then why the hell was he calling you? He messed you up bad last time girl, I told you that talking to him's bad for you."

"It wasn't like that," Amanda said with fire brimming in her voice, "he didn't try anything. He didn't even want to get together. He just told me not to go to school tomorrow."

"What?" Not that Kendal didn't mind the prospect of a day off (particularly because it was fucking cold), but with a call like that... something sounded fishy.

"He said that there's going to be some sort of protest at tomorrow and that he thinks it'd be safer if we didn't go to school then. He actually said we, he doesn't want you going either. He thinks that there might be cops and that people could get hurt." Amanda sounded sincere, but that didn't mean that Kendal was going to buy into any of that crap. Still...

"Free day off school, I'm all for that," Kendal said simply. She hoped Amanda would follow suit, but didn't think she was going to.

"I'm still going," Amanda responded. She tried not to let emotion form on her face, but that didn't stop it from showing through.

"Why?"

"I'm going to try to talk him out of it. If people are going to be hurt, I'm going to do whatever I have to do to make sure he isn't one of them."

Kendal couldn't help but feel frustrated by her friend, "Seriously, why? The guy wrecked you, you owe him nothing, and if people are going to get hurt, do you seriously want to be in the middle of things?"

Amanda smiled a hurt, almost broken smile, "Yeah. Yeah I do. I may have messed things up by getting together with him, but he's still a friend. I owe him that much. I have to go there and try and tell him to stay out of the mess. I might still have that much sway with him."

Kendal could tell that they were beyond the point of arguing on the matter. When Amanda got something in her head, she had the tendency to go through with it no matter what. But they were friends, and if she fought hard enough Kendal had been able to change her mind in the past. The only topic Amanda would never budge on was Basim, and Kendal knew that arguing any more on him would really do no good.

"You should still stay out of this," Amanda said simply, "go to the mall or something. If things go bad, I mean real bad, at least that way you'll be out of it. Think you could do that?"

Free day at the mall, skipping school... not a bad combo. Would be better with Amanda, but it was something she figured she could make do with if need be. _Just don't let her do something stupid and get herself hurt._

"I could do that, yeah."

* * *

The mall wasn't safe. It had started out decently enough, she'd tried on a few outfits, even managed to flirt with one of the guys behind the counter enough that he gave her a 20% discount on a really cute top. She was just about to head on over to one of the mall's three shoe stores to see what they had in stock when she spotted the three men in military fatigues holding rifles high. They walked through the food court purposefully, drawing confused and terrified looks from people in the crowd before they approached her. They'd asked her name, and once she confirmed it everything had gone black.

And so Kendal Fuchs became Girl # 22.

"Can I ask why we're walking toward the town now that it's on fire?" Kendal asked as they plodded through the snow. It was tiring, and though midday it was getting even colder. By the looks of things, a storm was blowing into town. A black pillar of smoke had begun to grow in the past couple of hours from the center of town, a distinct curve forming in it as the wind began to pick up.

"Well, that ought to make it warmer, right?" Amanda Marquette, a.k.a. Girl # 18, joked.

"We can get it warm anywhere, there were a lot of old farms back there," Kendal responded.

"Yeah, but none of them have people. Well, at least people we want to see."

"Who says that these're people we want to see, this could be a trap, you ever think of that?" Kendal asked with a wave of her gun for emphasis.

"Look, just trust me on this, all right? I know what I'm talking about here," Amanda replied simply. With the note of finality in her voice, Kendal knew that her best friend didn't want to consider the issue any longer. It was a pain in the ass to say the very least.

About an hour ago Amanda had received a text message from Basim calling them into town, saying that Isaac had found an escape route and that he wanted her to be a part of it. Amanda had taken the message at face value, but Kendal was more skeptical. _Yeah, she's hung up on him, but this much? If he doesn't kill us, she's going to get us killed just 'cause she's got a crush on a guy who messed her up. This could be a trap. It could be some psycho-killer in a mask with Basim's phone just fucking with her. It could be *anything*. What the hell?_

Kendal wanted to go back to the outskirts of town. They were safe. Sure, they were cold, and the buildings in them weren't all that nice for warmth, but there weren't that many people in them. Everyone else was making their hideaway within the town proper. In the outskirts, at least they had privacy. They could wait for the bad guys to come to them and fight them on their own terms if they wanted. It had been a good plan. It was one they both liked. And Amanda had turned her back on it quickly once she got the text. To an extent Kendal could even handle that; she could wrap her head around it in some way. But her fears of heading toward town were only made greater upon seeing the smoke billowing from the burning house (soon to be houses) in Grover's Mill's residential district. It looked like a war was brewing.

Plodding across the snowy fields toward town, Kendal was all too worried about the lack of cover. There were a few trees, some abandoned cars, but mostly it was an open field of stark white. True, things were flat, and they would probably see anyone coming from a half-mile away, but what good would that do? If someone had a better gun, they could pick off the two girls easily from a few miles away it seemed. It was all too much.

"Look, we gotta stop this, all right?" Kendal said, throwing her backpack to the base of an ancient-looking tree. She held the gun at her side calmly, not wanting to threaten Amanda if she didn't have to.

"Stop what?" Amanda asked.

"Look, if you want to go to town because you think there's a shot out of this thing or you want to meet other people, all right, that's fine. That's crazy, but not as crazy as all this, so I can get it. But if we're, like, running out there just so you can see _him_ again, then that's just stupid."

"No, us staying out on our own when there's a bunch of mass murderers who know how to use their guns better than us, that's stupid. We're heading to the church, and that is final." Amanda replied with the slightest hint of hostility in her voice. She smiled slightly, hoping that it would end the argument handily. Instead it managed to somehow make Kendal even angrier.

"Damn it, just stop pulling that shit, all right?" Kendal practically spat.

"Stop what?" Amanda asked, genuine confusion crossing her face.

"I know I'm not smart, all right, but just because you're smarter than me doesn't mean you get to run the whole show here. We are bff's, and that's a serious commitment. It means we are in this, _all _of this together. You don't trust me to make any decisions because you're smarter-"

"I never said I was-"

"No, but you act it, and it's insulting," tears formed at the corners of Kendal's eyes as she leaned against the tree in exhaustion, "I fucking hate that my own best friend thinks of me as something she has to drag around by the leash for her own good. You're my best friend, I love you, but I can't deal with you like this. We're either in this together, or we're not friends anymore."

The tears began to flow freely from Kendal's eyes as she began to openly weep. Amanda didn't know what to think; Kendal had never really opened up before. She never knew that her friend had even thought that way before.

"I'm so-" Amanda began, cut off by the harsh whistling sound that whirred through the air. It lasted for less than a second, but it was enough to break concentration. Kendal barely turned to meet the sound before the impact threw her into the tree. Had she still been capable of screaming, she would have. Instead she had been skewered through the neck by an arrow, held standing as it found it dug into the tree. Bright red blood bubbled from her mouth and the mortal wound in her neck as she gargled and choked. In shock, Amanda screamed and ran to her friend.

These three steps forward saved her life, missing the arrow that the killer had fired her way. Amanda didn't know about this though; she tried futilely to pull the arrow from the tree, maybe even save her friends life. Kendal was fighting, clawing at the fiery wound in her neck as tears of pain and bright, arterial blood streamed down her face. Everything was bright red. The snow. Kendal. Amanda.

Through her own tears, Amanda heard the third arrow being fired. On instinct she fell to the floor, barely missing the projectile as it flitted through her hair and hit the tree. The girl raised her pistol, firing blindly in the direction that the arrows were coming from. She could still see no attacker, but there was no doubt that they were being shot at. Probably from a good distance too if she could not see the attacker. It would still be possible to make it out, but only if...

Forcing herself into a crouch, Amanda looked up at her friend pinned to the tree. Kendal looked down to her weakly, lips quivering as she held out a hand. It looked like she was asking for mercy, maybe help.

"I'm sorry," Amanda said, grabbing the pistol that Kendal had dropped and forcing it in the back of her pants. She fired three more shots in the direction of their attacker before grabbing Kendal's pack, running around the tree and making a sprint for town. It wasn't much further, just another hundred yards or so. The tree would provide enough cover.

She just hoped that Kendal would go easy.

* * *

Kendal was still alive when Grendel had made his way to the tree. The firehead had gotten away, and he was angry. Not with her, she was just doing what all good little animals do when they're being shot at. No, he was angry with himself. The gloves were warm, but they made stringing the bow that much more difficult. It took the beast five more seconds to load that final arrow, and by that time the firehead had taken to the other side of the tree and run off. It was sloppy. It had messed up. There would be consequences.

When the girl stuck to the tree saw what was approaching her, her eyes went wide, her mouth gasping open and closed like a fish out of water trying to make its way back in. Any other time Grendel would have enjoyed such a sight, but in its angry state there was no fun to be had. With the woodsman's ax in both hands, the creature raised it above its head and brought the weapon down in one, simple stroke. Kendal's head and neck split in half as if he were cutting a watermelon, her body falling into the blood-drenched snow. Steam rose from it in a gruesome mist.

It wasn't a good kill, but it wasn't a bad one either. As far as Grendel was concerned, that pretty much summed up the entire game. It had done better before, it _could_ do better, but instead it was hunting a bunch of soft kids who didn't know what a real hunt was like. They didn't know the real joy of the kill, the thrill of watching the life leave the prey's eyes just as the last drops of blood drained from the neck. They didn't know what fun could be found in seeking out the good fights, finding the great kills. They knew nothing of glory. Of pride. Of making the hunt _good._

Of course the blonde had put up no fight. She was not a fighter. She'd had a gun (which was missing, another problem), but she didn't even try to fight when he approached. True, her throat was skewered, but when had that ever stopped anyone from fighting before? Back in Bunazca the creature had slit a young boy's throat and still had to fight him for another minute before blood loss had weakened him. This girl... she was weak.

Her partner, the firehead, she'd run off. Left her friend to bleed, to die. Badly. Grendel had to admire the girl that much. _She_ had fought, she had tried to save her friend, but she ran off when she knew she no longer stood a chance. That... that was smart. She had the survival instinct. She would try to regroup, try to find friends (if there were any she could trust at least), and try to fight. This girl wasn't one to hide. The creature looked forward to seeing her again soon.

With great deliberation, Grendel set about preparing the girl's body. He ripped her clothes free, tossing the bits of cloth aside with little care. Although keeping to its business, it could not help but admire the body of the girl as it lay in the snow. She kept in shape, but still had a breeder's body. Real blonde too, that much'd always fetch her a good price at the Bun.

Pulling a noose from its bag, the creature wrapped it taut around the naked corpse's feet. Grendel then swung the other end of the rope over a tree limb and began to pull. Though the girl weighed just over a hundred pounds, the monster could hoist her as easily as a stack of pillows. Much like Jessica before, it set about preparing the girl as if she were a deer, methodically disemboweling and skinning portions of her with its previous victim's weapon.

The hunts would get better. The monster had been promised good hunting; it was part of the contract. They were supposed to get better toward the end. The strong would make it to the end. They would make for good kills. Kills worthy of trophies. Nothing like what could be found back home of course, but beggars couldn't be choosers, right?

A harsh ringing from the side of the beast's blood-drenched overalls didn't surprise it in the slightest.

It was time.


	26. Hour 14: 42 Contestants Remaining

**

* * *

Hour 14**

**42 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

Isaac Freemantle, a.k.a. Boy # 17, was making Battle Royale history. Never before had one person brought together so many people together under one roof in a game. As the game's fourteenth hour rolled on, there were 26 people within the church. Soon enough, four more would be joining them. Most were there for escape. Some had ulterior motives. All were anxious, awaiting the next step. Many hoped that it would lead to salvation. Some suspected a potential bloodbath. If the massive grouping in the church had any definitive effect, it was that it distracted most of the people within from the game enough to give them some sense of safety.

No one in the game could have predicted what horrors the next two hours held.

* * *

Organized Chaos. There really were no words that could describe the situation in the church better than Organized Chaos. In the beginning, when there were fewer people, then things made sense. There was some order in it then. When there were fewer people to order around, fewer people to question orders, things were getting done. They were getting done badly, but they were still getting done. That much Amber Miike, a.k.a. Girl # 5, could appreciate. They'd made their barricades, gathered together a few people and indoctrinated them into what was going on, set guards about their posts. Everyone had something to do, and it was all working just fine.

But ever since they'd cut Rich, ever since the people really started flowing in... everything had gone to hell. There were too many of them (_count 26 now)_, suddenly the jobs were drying up, and people were waiting around being told what to do. It was a pot waiting to boil over and explode, and she didn't know if she'd be capable of dealing with it when it did.

"We're totally fucked, aren't we?" Glen Counihan, a.k.a. Boy # 2, asked as he sat down beside the girl.

"What?"

"I am reading your face correctly, aren't I? Since that troubled sort of look you got going on right now hardly says that you've got any faith in our fearless leader," the boy continued with a surprisingly bright smile on his face. Amber could only smile back. His enthusiasm for such a fucked up scenario was surprisingly infectious.

"Yeah, we probably are. But that's just speaking generally, with Isaac we're probably about as far away from totally fucked as we could be. Now we're more along the lines of basically fucked," Amber joked back. She reached into her pocket, pulled free a pack of Red Apple cigarettes. She wasn't a habitual smoker, but there were times that it certainly took the edge off.

"You want one?" she asked. Glen politely shook his head.

"Not a smoker, and even if I was I'd probably say no for fear of lighting my arm on fire," Glen said as he showed off his blue cast, "gotta keep alive long enough to be cannon fodder, right?"

Amber looked at him with a confused, nervous look, "What?"

"Oh come on, why do you think Isaac's gathering this many people together? He wants a human shield for whenever he decides on executing his plan. He's going to be behind us, organizing the troops, and all of us unarmed or poorly armed folk are gonna fall in front of him while he's barking out orders and directing the survivors," Glen said with that malevolent grin still on his face. It was clear to Amber that he was not an Isaac fan.

"He may be an asshole, but I don't think he's planning on killing us," Amber said, "no one could be that calculating."

"Well, he could if he were a serial killer now, couldn't he?"

"Isaac's not a killer."

"How do you know?"

"Because if he was, he could have taken a gun and just started shooting us one at a time as we came in. He didn't do that."

Glen shrugged, "Maybe you're right, maybe I'm right. Guess we'll find out when we get there, won't we?"

Amber shot back defensively, "If you think he's going to get us killed, then why are you still here? Why not run and just get yourself out of this before it becomes a mess?"

Glen's eyes drifted across the room and caught sight of Julie Hewitt, a.k.a. Girl # 19. His smile never once faltered.

"I got my reasons."

* * *

Motivational Supervisor. It was a bullshit title, even he could see it, but Jordan Miike, a.k.a. Boy # 16, didn't intend to fail at it. Isaac had handed out jobs to people, and most of them were simple. Guard this, barricade that, inventory that, process newcomers and make sure they're safe. Those jobs were straightforward, they were fast, and for the most part everyone they were assigned to were sitting around doing absolutely jack shit. Jordan had wanted a job. He wanted something important, something he wouldn't need a gun for, and something that would be fun. Isaac had simply told Jordan at first to help out with the barricading process, saying that it was what they needed the most help at the time. When Jordan had protested, Isaac's second in command, Sophia had stepped up with a smile (_ugly fucking smile_) and told him that he would be the Motivational Supervisor. It was his job to wander the church, talk to people, keep them happy, chatting, joking, whatever was necessary to keep the mood high and the anger down. It was a bullshit job, one to keep him from causing a scene, but he didn't mind it. It was something.

And he'd done the job with gusto. He'd made his rounds of the increasingly large revolutionary group, chatting, joking, throwing in help whenever it was needed. He hadn't expected it to do much good, and it really didn't. Most people were more than content to wallow in whatever crappy feelings they had. Those who were scared, remained scared. Those who were angry, still angry. He wasn't doing a damn thing other than schmoozing the big crowd, and most of them didn't give a damn that he was around.

Looking across the pews, the boy caught sight of a couple new faces. _Well, this certainly adds some fun to the mix, doesn't it?_

Cynthia Argento, a.k.a. Girl # 12, and Diana Halsey, a.k.a. Girl # 13, sat in one of the pews toward the back of the church. With no friends within the church, the two girls sat looking both confused and somewhat scared at the crew that had gathered within. Despite everything that had gone down, they both still looked absolutely gorgeous. _What, not like you're expecting a date or anything, are ya? Ah well, play everything right, might get a little bit of ass by the end of this thing at the very least._

Sidling on over to the two girls confidently with a confident smile, Jordan intended to make good on his job.

"Hello ladies..."

* * *

"Is it bad?" Vic Benedict, a.k.a. Boy # 23, asked as he lifted his ankle up on the pew. It hurt like a bitch, and through the layers of winter socks he could barely see how it looked. His girlfriend Alyssa Fallon, a.k.a. Girl # 23, looked on with distinct amusement.

"Oh quit being such a baby," she asked as she poked his injured ankle and laughed with some amusement.

"You quit being a baby, it hurts like hell!" he protested. With that, Alyssa poked him again and laughed.

It wasn't exactly how she'd expected to start her medical career, but all the same Gillian Stavros, a.k.a. Girl # 10, was satisfied. With the supplies she had collected, she had become something of a Battle Royale field medic. There was no way she was going to take place in the combat aspects of the game unless she absolutely had to, and with the protection in numbers... well, it no longer seemed necessary to be really prepared for that part. They needed her gun for guard duty, and so she'd given it to Shaun. With a bare bones kit of basic supplies she had been able to set up a ramshackle medical clinic at the back of the church. Nobody within it had been that seriously injured (_thank god_), but as with any Battle Royale, there were a lot of little injuries that needed tending to lest they get a lot worse. Kerry was suffering from minor burns. Stacey had a minor gunshot wound to her arm. Randal damn near looked like he was going to have a heart attack when he came in, but upon calming down he turned out to be healthy. Hera had cuts on her face from broken car safety glass, a ricochet from her run in with CJ. Almost everyone was suffering from the cold, some with light snow blindness, others with wet feet where their boots had been soaked through by the snow. _People here have been living in Michigan how long, and they still don't know how to deal with the snow? Pitiful, that's just positively pitiful._

Vic Benedict's twisted ankle on the other hand was positively simple to take care of.

"How'd it happen again?" Gillian asked simply as she pulled out a tight roll of bandages.

"I wanted to take a look at the town from the bell tower, but I missed a step, twisted it pretty bad," Vic winced.

"That's what you get for being a damn fool," Alyssa chided.

"So what, it hurts like hell! Seriously Gill, how bad is it?" Vic asked with another wince.

"You're going to be fine," Gillian responded honestly as she wrapped his ankle tight, "you have a pretty good bruise and might've pulled a tendon the wrong way, but it should be fine. Keep it wrapped, keep it dry, and stay off of it if you can afford to."

"Yeah right, like I'm going to be able to stay off of it if der Kommandant has anything to say about it," Vic joked miserably. Pulling his boot on back over the wrap, Vic hobbled off toward the rear of the church with the help of his girlfriend. Although Gillian did not share his thoughts on Isaac, the sentiments did disturb the girl to her core. A lot of people seemed to have a mixed level of trust in Isaac Freemantle, and it wasn't a good sign of what was to come. Gillian was a loyalist; she believed in Isaac for the most part. If he said he could get them out, he was going to. But it was not going to work if everyone didn't trust him.

"Hey Gill, got a second?" Hera Morgan, a.k.a. Girl # 20, asked. Gillian glanced over her shoulder and caught the other girl's warm smile. It was infectious. Hera was among the few people that Gillian felt truly comfortable being around in the game. They were on different sports teams (track for Gillian, softball for Hera), but the common kinship of being athletes made it easy for them to be friendly. _Nobody gets the team thing like jocks; hell, if my whole team were here, we'd have probably cracked this thing by now. Or died trying._

"Sure," Gillian said with a smile as she suppressed a shudder, "what can I do for ya?"

"I think one of my stitches popped loose," the girl said as she sat down on the pew next to Gillian. She turned her head, pointing to the light cuts that ran horizontally across her left cheek. Indeed, a loose piece of thread hung from the edge of her cheek.

"Sorry about that," Gillian replied as she rooted through her medical kit. _Needle, thread. Shit, get the job done right this time._

"Don't worry about it, we're all a little fried here," Hera said with a smile.

"Do I have to remind you that this will probably hurt like hell?" Gillian asked as she threaded her needle.

"Nope."

"Good, then this'll be easier for both of us," Gillian said as she went to work. It was easy to remove the previous stitches; putting the new ones in took a little more focus. _Don't want anything popping loose this time. We all might need to be moving soon, don't want her bleeding all over the place from some shitty little cut to the face and getting distracted._

"Can I ask you a question Hera?" Gillian asked. She tried to sound nonchalant, though had no idea if she was all that successful or not.

"Fire away."

The words were hard to get out, but she needed to ask them. She needed to hear the reply. She needed to know that she wasn't alone in how she felt.

"Do you trust Isaac?" The words sat heavily in between the two girls. Gillian felt mortified for even asking, and Hera unconsciously seemed to thrust her hand into her pocket. Gillian prepared to recoil, almost certain she would see a weapon in the girl's hand. Instead she just saw an aged paper booklet folded in half.

"You really don't want to hear what I think about Isaac Freemantle..."

* * *

She wasn't in the big room, and she didn't have a gun, but Christina Montressor, a.k.a. Girl # 24, still had power. Isaac had placed her in charge of their guards, making sure to rotate them out when necessary and keeping up on any reports of movement on the outside. It was ultimately a task easier said than done, as there were very few people who had wanted anything resembling an official guard duty, but there was still some semblance of order. The two side doors, barricaded though they were, were guarded by Carlos Bautista, a.k.a. Boy # 6, and Shaun Archer, a.k.a. Boy # 12. They were both regular heroic types who had no problem joining up for the good of everyone. Shaun had been pitifully unarmed, but thankfully Gillian really didn't want anything to do with her gun and was more than willing to let it be requisitioned off. The back doors to the church were unguarded, but considering the effort they had made into barricading the rear entrances and windows, it seemed that it would take a goddamn tank to actually make it in somehow.

That just left the front doors. The big, church, front doors. If it had been up to Christina they would have boarded them up first thing like something out of a zombie movie, taking down barricades when they knew they had people they could trust coming in. But Isaac wanted them open. He wanted them ready for anyone and everyone who wanted to join. What Isaac said, went, and so she left the doors open. At least the people she had left on them were good. Hugo Diaz, a.k.a. Boy # 4, was as big as a tank and about as smart. That being said, there was no one more trustworthy out there, and the Tommy Gun he had been assigned would prove invaluable if someone had tried to attack. She didn't know Conrad Ripley, a.k.a. Boy # 18, but he seemed like a pretty good kid. Pudgy and with a thick pair of glasses, he was hardly intimidating. However, it also seemed that there was no one braver in the game than him. Every time they needed to make a scouting mission outside the church, he volunteered with gusto. He may not have looked like much, but he was good people as far as Christina was concerned.

"What's up?" the girl asked with a bright smile as she reached the door guards.

"Not much here," Hugo said gruffly.

"Things have been quiet ever since the last bunch of refugees came in," Conrad said, motioning to Randal and the two girls who had come in with them. Conrad's face didn't reveal much, though Christina could see some irritation. _Seems he's got problems with our numbers too._

"Any word from Isaac?" Hugo asked. Though he was probably one of the least intelligent members of the insurrection, he was all too aware of how far into Isaac's pocket Christina was. He may have been the muscle, but she was the muscle with connections. He'd seen her disappearing into the back room whenever summoned, and knew that she was fairly important when it came to the big plan.

"Yeah, he wants to get everyone gathered together and make a speech soon," Christina said, "but we're waiting up for a few more stragglers. Definitely know the Three Amigos are coming, and Basim said that he'd try to get in touch with Amanda. And where there's Amanda, there's Kendal. So we got three, maybe five people headed our way now."

"Five people?" Conrad asked with a grimace. _Yeah, he's definitely not liking the numbers, is he?_

"Yeah."

"So that'll make thirty-one of us," Conrad said thoughtfully, "any reason in particular that Isaac's raising up an army?"

"He says he needs a lot of people," Christina said as she balanced her bat on her shoulder, "I gotta finish my rounds, just keep on the lookout for more good guys."

Christina didn't want to get into a debate on the safety of having this many people in one place in a Battle Royale. According to Isaac, the only time a group even close to this size had been brought together before was the Texas game, and that was so they could form a suicide pact and wait out the end of the game. Though Isaac had told her the plan, it still did not give the girl any of the confidence she would have hoped for. _Isaac knows what he's doing. He says he's going to get us out of here, and he's going to get us out of here. But what if he doesn't got what it takes? He let Rich live, he's not as ruthless as he needs to be. Wouldn't put it past him to have a suicide pact set up, would you?_

Shaking the thought from her head, Christina continued her rounds of the perimeter. She checked the unbarricaded windows, they were still intact. They were stained glass, pretty sturdy looking too. Someone would really have to want in to get through to be able to knock one of them down.

Carlos and Shaun were still good on guard duty, though she promised she'd give Carlos a break once her rounds were finished. _Gotta keep everyone frosty on this. Almost ready for action, can't have anyone screwing up._

Heading into the back rooms of the church, Christina made her way up the winding, wooden staircase that led to the bell tower. It certainly wasn't the best or biggest of bell towers, but with Grover's Mill being relatively flat, it offered the best view of the entire town. She climbed the steps with a soft laugh to herself, wondering how glad he'd be to be relieved of duty.

She opened the door, braced for the cold as it began to pour into the otherwise temperate stairwell. Darwin Wong, a.k.a. Boy # 20, sat stationed in a lawn chair with a beer in one hand and a rifle in his other hand watching over the town with a goofy grin on his face. Seemed he had a pretty good buzz going on.

"Your tour's over Wong," Christina said with a smirk, "Isaac's making his speech soon, wants everyone inside. You coming?"

"Oh hell yeah," Darwin said, "things are gettin' colder and spookier, I could use the break."

"See anything?" Christina asked.

"Nothing too recent. Fire's still burning bigger and brighter, and I don't think the fire department's gonna be getting on it anytime soon. Heard some gunshots on the north end of town too about twenty minutes ago, but they were pretty far away."

Christina thought miserably about the shots, wondering who they might have come from. They hadn't heard Rich's name announced over the town speakers, and she was beginning to worry that he may have decided to play. _Isaac's gonna have a lot to own up to if that little puissant is still alive and hunting out there._

"Come on," she said, "let's get in where it's warm, aight?"

* * *

Brenda Lennon, a.k.a. Girl # 15, didn't belong in the church. Everyone else in the church had, at the very least, some tenuous connection to Isaac Freemantle and the coming rebellion. Some of them worshipped him, as friends, as something more. Others respected him. There were more than a few who even just stood by him without trusting him, staying because they believed that he did indeed have some way of escaping the game after all. One person even stayed out of a macabre form of curiosity, interested in what the escape might offer and ready to enjoy mayhem and blood should it not work. Brenda, on the other hand, stayed so she could watch Isaac fail. Time and again she had been forced by one friend or another to listen to his self-righteous drivel. Time and again she had heard people gush about how intelligent Isaac was. Time and again it was all about Isaac. Everything was Isaac's show, Isaac's idea, Isaac's plan. Isaac as a god, ruling over his peasantry and enjoying every minute of the grand show that surrounded him.

Brenda Lennon was sick and tired of Isaac.

Short and rather squat with a thick pair of glasses and a flat, almost piggy face, she had never exactly been a pretty girl. Her mother had always said that it explained why Brenda spent all her time studying politics instead of playing with dolls. Brenda had always known that she wasn't the beautiful people and had been glad for it. There were more important things in the world than worrying about how one looked in the morning. There were causes, there were inequalities that needed addressing. She was the one to address them. A member of numerous liberal causes (what few still existed in the increasingly strangling American government), Brenda had marched for labor and animal rights, had fire hoses unleashed upon her during a peaceful march against the Battle Royale program, and once spent two nights in prison over the same protest. She'd been lucky, three of the other members who resisted at that rally had been hanged from street lamps as examples to the rest. _They died for the wrong reasons. It was stupid to do what they did. You cannot fight the system, but you can argue with it. You can persuade. With some work... maybe even some change can come out of all it._

She saw that as the key difference between her and Isaac Freemantle. At heart, they were both revolutionaries. In effect, they even believed in the same causes. It was methodology that set them apart, and methodology that pissed her off more than anything else. He believed in violent revolution, a futile gesture of force to be repelled with even more force. It didn't get anything as a result except a pile of bodies on both sides (albeit more on the side of the revolutionaries). The girl knew enough about history that she was unable to deny that violent revolution had its place. Hell, America was founded on such a notion. However, on the small scale, violent revolution was an ultimately pointless gesture. All it amounted to was a bunch of dead people with nothing ultimately accomplished. _If you fight, you die. If you run, you can live to see another day. When you're looking to save lives, running is the only way._

There was no denying that Isaac Freemantle was the reason they were in the Battle Royale. Someone had put out the information that there would be a protest, and the big wigs behind the game probably were ecstatic. They clearly already had facilities readied for a Michigan game (_we are still in Michigan, right?_), and hearing of a bunch of dumbass kids looking to try to fight the power right on their doorstep? It was golden. Isaac Freemantle had set up the protest, and it was because of him they were all going to die.

Brenda knew that she could not prevent their deaths. The game was too perfect to allow for an escape, there was no happy ending (Otis Shylock or not). They would die. It was up to them to decide _how _they wanted to die. If everyone followed Isaac, he would lead them into a mass execution. Maybe get killed by stronger competitors or from some insurrection. Maybe just a mass collar explosion. It would be violent. It would be bad. It would be futile.

But if they all chose to die together, well, that would be something else, wouldn't it? Violent protest would clearly result in nothing, but if they decided to all commit a mass suicide, at least they would be going out on their own terms. Hunter's Lake seemed like the best opportunity for that. Strip down, jump into the icy water. Hypothermia would kick in quickly, the body would go into shock. They would drown. It would be unpleasant for a few moments, but it would still be fairly quick. They would go out on their own steam, and they would do it without Isaac.

It would take some work, but she was sure there were a few people she could convince. It was clear that not everyone else was completely in love with Isaac's techniques. She could convince them, she could get them with her, and they would give the finger to the game and Isaac Freemantle all at once. It would be great.

Everything was beginning to move fast. People were getting restless. Those in Isaac's inner circle were spending longer and longer periods of time in the back room. He was getting ready for an address, that much was clear. Get everyone on his side with a rousing motivational speech that'd go great at the halfway point of a movie. She would make her move then. Wait for him to begin his big, grand speech. She would pounce like a tiger, take him off guard, steal all his thunder... The thought sounded beautiful.

Brenda couldn't help but smile.

* * *

Mallory Bell, a.k.a. Girl # 1, was lonely. She was glad to be in the revolution, but there were very few people within it that she knew very well. It was an odd bunch; politicos and athletes, actors and nerds, criminals and cheerleaders. She should have felt at home with most of the group members, but still she felt isolated. They all had something to do, they all had purpose. They all didn't have any doubt in what they were doing. The girl was glad for the revolution because it would keep her alive, but she was afraid of it too. After what they had done to Rich, how couldn't she doubt it? They'd attacked him, beaten him, mutilated him. She wanted to stop it, but they wouldn't hear reason. They wanted blood. They wanted to out their traitor, the person who brought them into the game. They wanted to kill him. Instead, Isaac simply spited the boys face and sent him out to die. _Damn good job they did of it too if those announcements are right. If there's any karma in the universe, Rich isn't nearly as big a coward as they all think._

She wanted someone to talk to. She wanted a friend, anyone she knew. But more than anything else she wanted to cry. _This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Nothing was supposed to go this way. I played by the rules, I was the good girl, but I'm still here. Seriously, what the hell do you do in something like this?_

"You look like you could use some chocolate," a surprisingly high spirited voice said. Looking to the boy standing in the church's aisle, she was surprised to see that he was huge. And a hippie. Although she'd seen Randal Hudson, a.k.a. Boy # 19, enter with the rest of his group, she didn't really pay him mind. He was just another person, another body in Isaac's revolution. She could recognize him from school, but didn't know his name. He didn't exactly travel in her usual social circles.

"Pardon?" Mallory asked.

He sidled on into her pew, sitting down heavily. The wooden bench groaned under his weight. Looking almost cheerful, he swung his backpack into his lap.

"You know, it's funny. In times when things are really bad, you can really tell a lot about a person by what they hoard. I believe we're all hoarders by our very nature, you very rarely find a person who wants less, you'll always find someone wanting more. But in disasters, times of civil unrest, mob rule, you learn a lot by what people hoard. It shows what they really find important. Some folk in this game here are taking up liquor, some cigarettes, and the most prudent are just hoarding whatever real food they can pillage from the houses. Me on the other hand..."

He pulled open his backpack, revealing what appeared to be nearly a hundred candy bars. Every name she could imagine, even more that she hadn't heard of.

"Take whatever you want," Randal said simply as he grabbed for an Apollo bar, "chocolate's supposed to be the ultimate comfort food, and it looks like you could use the comfort right now."

"Thank you," Mallory said tentatively. "Are those any good?"

"Damn good," Randal said with a hearty bite of his bar. Following him in kind, she too grabbed an Apollo bar. Taking it daintily into her hands, the girl munched small bites from the end. It was good, and he was right. She was feeling better.

"Everything's going to be all right," Randal said suddenly as he forced the remainder of the bar into his mouth.

"Why does every guy say that to me?" Mallory asked with a light laugh.

Randal smiled, "Two reasons I think. Wanna hear them?"

"Sure," Mallory responded. The chocolate felt good. The human contact, odd though the person may look, felt even better.

"First, it looks like you could use some reassurance. You look like you're about to collapse here."

"We're all about to collapse here," she corrected.

"Fair enough."

"And the second reason?"

The boy smiled tentatively, "Because it's a damn sight easier than saying, 'Hi, my name is Randal and I think you're cute.'"

Even though he was the kind of guy she normally wouldn't have given a second's glance, she couldn't help but blush. _Maybe everything could be all right after all._

* * *

Carlos was used to being popular for all the wrong reasons. He knew that the girls often followed him because he was attractive. Guys would want to hang out with him because he was a good soccer player. Teachers gave often gave him a pass for both of these reasons. The boy didn't necessarily dislike the attention, but they gave it to him for all the wrong reasons. He was more than just a pretty face. He was more than an awesome soccer player. He had dreams, he had aspirations. Hell, he was even a half-decent sculptor (when he put his mind to it at least). But people would never know that. They would only know what they saw and draw their conclusions as they wanted to. With him, people only saw what they wanted to see, and it sucked.

That hadn't even changed in the game. Everyone called him a hero, when at the very most he was just incredibly lucky. He'd pulled Kerry Rawlings, a.k.a. Girl # 2, from a burning building. They all seemed to think that it was one of the most heroic things around, when for him it was merely acting on instinct. Hell, people _should _have been expected to help someone screaming for help in a burning building. He just did it.

But as far as he was concerned, he wasn't a hero. Not by a long shot. If he'd have been a hero, Misty wouldn't have died. He would have been able to get with her in that house in that early morning hour, he would have been able to talk her down and take her to safety. Instead, she was attacked by that boy in the blue balaclava. Shot in the snow and left to die like an animal. It was clear that she did not suffer long, at least that much was a blessing, but it didn't bring her back to life either. He would have to find the boy in the blue balaclava, and he would have to even the odds.

"So who do you think it was?" Stacey Golden, a.k.a. Girl # 4, asked. Even in a time as messed up as this, he had to smile. _At least I'm not the only one interested._ Taking his break from door guard duty, Carlos had sat with Kerry and Stacey. Kerry had been talking him up, and Stacey had wanted to know the whole story. Like the rest, she had called him a hero. Unlike the rest, she seemed to have an almost morbid fascination with who the boy in the blue balaclava was.

"Not a clue. Didn't get a very good look, it could've been anyone really."

"Are you even sure it was a boy?" Stacey asked, "There's a lot of pretty well-armed girls around here, it really could've been damn near anyone."

Carlos hadn't put that much thought into it, but dismissed the thought almost immediately. There was no way any of the girls in this class could have done something that horrible. The thought was just... impossible.

"I doubt it," Carlos replied, "they were pretty tall, taller than most of the girls 'round here except Christina and Sophia, and they've been in here since the beginning I think. And whoever did it had to be much more of a stone-cold killer than any of the girls here."

"Don't dismiss us girls so easy," Kerry said simply, "if you've never seen a good catfight you don't know how down and dirty we can get. Most of us girls here may look meek and weak, but I know I've seen almost everyone here get knock-down drag-out fighting at one time or another."

Even though the commentary sounded pretty grim, Carlos was glad to hear Kerry up for talking. She'd seemed borderline catatonic after he'd pulled her from the burning house, but she'd come down considerably since getting to the church.

"Well, not counting the people in here," Stacey said pragmatically, "we've still got some guy's whose actions have been unaccounted for. We've got Iago, god knows he's enough of a psycho to go for it. Either of the Nick's, I'd definitely say King was a good possibility before he died."

"CJ too, he looked pretty intense on the bus," Kerry responded.

"And don't forget-" Carlos began, cut off as the boy in the clown mask jumped out from beneath the pew behind him. The two girls next to him yelped in fear, drawing attention from a good portion of the church crew as nearly half a dozen people drew guns on the scene. Carlos reached for his shotgun, but didn't pull it out. The smile beneath the clown mask meant no harm.

"Hey Frank," Carlos said as casually as he could.

"Hello back at you my friend," Frank Luczak, a.k.a. Boy # 14, replied just as casually. He pulled the mask over his forehead, earning a punch in the shoulder from Kerry for his trouble.

"That was so not funny," the girl said, although the smile that began to curl at the corners of her mouth seemed to say otherwise. Even Stacey, who seemed on the verge of screaming bloody murder, seemed positively charmed now that Frank was around. The handsome theatre student just seemed to have that sort of effect on girls that made them drop a few IQ points whenever he was around. Carlos could relate.

"Where'd you get the mask?" Carlos asked. It was an ugly looking thing, cheerful white skin, absurdly red skin, a shock of orange and green hair on top. At least it was only half a mask, if there'd been a creepy mouth forced into a permanent smile, Frank might've actually been causing a heart attack or two.

"Amos. Seemed someone higher up thought it might be a funny idea to give it to him as a weapon, although I imagine you could only really scare someone to death with it," Frank said smoothly, putting the mask in his bag as he calmly smoothed his hair back.

"You shouldn't be going around doing that," Stacey added, "there're enough people around here with guns who'd just have shot you dead for doing that."

"Well, what can I say," Frank said with a smile, "whatever happens, happens. Anyone want a yogurt?"

The boy opened his bag, revealing a few disposable yogurt containers and a cheap box of plastic spoons.

"There are also some granola bars if anyone is interested. Really, these options are much better than anything they could have provided us. Don't you just love how well stocked this town is? Everything you could possibly want, right at your fingertips," Frank said simply. He shot Carlos a conspiratorial wink, and for some reason the boy couldn't entirely explain he shivered. While the girls descended almost ravenously on the healthy food options that Frank had stashed away, Carlos tried to alleviate his worries. Like many, he'd always believed Frank to be gay. Bi at the very least. He had a way that seemed to make girls flock to him, and boys uncomfortable at the same time. Generally speaking, Carlos had tried to avoid talking with him, as it often seemed that Frank was trying to pick him up.

The boy shook off the thoughts. None of that mattered in game. All that mattered was that Frank was with them. He was one of the good guys. Smiling, he accepted a strawberry yogurt from the boy with the clown mask. Frank simply smiled back and began to tell a joke.

* * *

Everything was happening so fast that Amos Epstein, a.k.a. Boy # 7, hardly knew what to do with himself. Isaac was going to be addressing the crowd soon, and that was going to get bad. There would be some people who would want to fight him, there would be some people who would want to get up and make a scene of things. It was easy enough to tell that much from the crowd. _As a wise man once said, it doesn't take a weatherman to see which way the wind is blowing..._

There were going to be problems. Big problems. Amos just wished he had an idea of what to do about them. Looking over the mass of people sitting among the pews, Amos could only see restlessness. It was clearly long past the time that a meeting should have happened. They should have talked everything out already, they should have set up a plan and figured out what they were going to do. Frankly, it sucked.

Christina was coming his way, and the boy sighed inside. He liked Isaac well enough, but his tendency to surround himself with loyal attack dogs was still somewhat disturbing. Sidling around with that baseball bat on her shoulder, she looked damn near ready to pounce at a moment's notice. _Great, just great._

"Hey Amos?" Christina asked.

"What's up?" Amos responded.

"Isaac's holding a meeting in the back room of the leaders, he wants you in on it. Five minutes, aight?" It wasn't really a question. She left to continue her rounds, and the boy was once again left with only his thoughts. _Great. So now I'm a leader. Guess that means I'm getting blamed for this too if something fucks up. Lovely._

Looking for his one point of sanity in the entire game, Amos spied his boyfriend Shaun Archer, a.k.a. Boy # 12, on the other side of the room. He looked surprisingly together under the circumstances, but then again, wasn't he always? Amos was the consummate worrier; Shaun was about as laid-back as a person could be. It infuriated Amos to no end sometimes, but there were times that he was glad for it. This was one of them.

Looking purposeful, Amos wandered over to Shaun and smiled. Shaun flashed that brilliant Captain American smile back. _I really do love this man, don't I? _ _I guess things could be worse._

"I need some sanity," Amos said quickly.

"So, what's new?" Shaun joked back.

"Seriously, this is all going way too crazy way too fast and I have no clue what the fuck is going to happen. Damn it I need a smoke," Amos said.

"You should ask Sophia, it seems she cleared out the liquor store's supply," Shaun responded.

"Thanks."

"Though you know smoking's supposed to be bad for you," Shaun chided playfully. As an athlete he tried to live healthy, and Amos' smoking had always been a point of contention between the two. At least this time he seemed to be joking.

"In this game, I think I'll take my chances."

"So what brought up the need for sanity?"

Amos sighed, "Isaac wants to have a meeting with the group leaders. I think he's getting ready to address everyone."

"About frickin time, the villagers are restless and I think they're about to skin him unless they get a plan soon."

"He's got a plan," Amos said defensively.

"I know. You trust him, I trust him, we're in good on this one, just relax," Shaun said with a confident smile. Amos tried to smile back, and instead felt as if he were beginning to hyperventilate. _Relax. Right. Nothing's going wrong, nothing bad is going to happen. Trust your gut, trust Isaac, trust Shaun, everything's going to be all-_

Amos was surprised when Shaun kissed him. Shaun had never been all that fond of public displays of affection, mostly due to his having been closeted for quite some time. Even afterward it had been difficult to get him to do anything publicly about their relationship. To be kissing him in the church in front of all their classmates... was definitely a surprise. But a pleasant one at least. Calmness flowed through him. Everything actually _did _feel like it was going to turn out well.

"Find some sanity?" Shaun asked with a confident grin.

"Yeah, I think I did."

The boys were late, but none of them really minded all that much. There was time to spare, and Isaac hadn't said anything specific about when they were supposed to show up. They'd made contact with him, they'd made contact with the girls... and there was time to spare. Despite the temperature, despite the game, despite the fact that they were all sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, the boys were in pretty good spirits.

* * *

"All right, I'll admit it," Ruben "Rub" Wood, a.k.a. Boy # 5, said, "the movie looked a helluva lot better on the cover."

"It's a porno, all it's got is naked women on the cover," Aziz Haddad, a.k.a. Boy # 8, replied, "that's what they all got on the cover. How can you tell them apart? You just happen to pick the one that actually tried to put a plot in a porno."

"Hey, how the fuck was I supposed to know that something titled _Master Ass Blasters 17_ would actually try to throw a plot into things? I just know I saw ass, it looked like nice ass, and it looked like it had promise. Like I said, that guy had fucked up tastes, how was I supposed to know he actually had stuff with a storyline?" Rub said defensively.

"I don't know, you probably just have really shitty luck," Aziz replied with a laugh.

"Hey fuck you man, don't make me bust a pitifully small cap in your ass," Rub joked as he pulled the Derringer from his pocket. It was hard for the other boys not to laugh when Rub tried to sound ghetto, as he was perhaps the least ghetto in upbringing black kid they knew.

"Storyline's all right in the right doses," Basim Sharafi, a.k.a. Boy # 13, added, "but I think it's a precise balance."

"How precise?" Aziz asked.

"Well, depends on what you're doing really. Say you take a porno, you can throw a little bit of talking in, but too much is going to bore the hell out of people. They want to get to the action, and when you're talking spank material I think that's pretty OK. It's other stuff where you get into some real hairy areas. Particularly something like the Battle Royale here," Basim said simply. Though none of the boys were particular fans of the game, all of them had watched at least one game on television out of curiosity.

"The way I figure, by broadcasting a 24 hour feed of this game, even if they only just choose to show us the 'stars' as they're making them, they're making things boring. It's hard to edit something real dynamic if you want it to be going out live, and you have to pick and choose and guess a person's longevity and try to focus on and edit them accordingly. Honestly, I'm glad I'm not the guy in the control room right now," Basim said with a laugh.

"No, you're the guy in the game on a death march with two of his best buds," Rub replied grimly. Basim's smile all but disappeared.

Sensing tension, Aziz tried to lighten the mood, "So how do you think we're going to be edited?"

"Comic relief maybe?" Rub suggested, "God knows there's more constructive stuff that we could be doing than sneaking in porno films and talking about random shit."

"Considering all we've done is look at porno and discuss sex," Basim replied with a fresh smile, "people are going to think we're either perverts or gay."

This brought another ripple of laughter through the group, and they plodded along in good spirits.

"That look like the church up there to you?" Aziz asked as he caught sight of the spire of the bell tower in the distance.

"Probably," Basim said with a smile, "it's the tallest thing in town, and you Christians really do get off on your phallic structures, don't you?"

"No more than you Muslims get off on strapping a few pounds of explosives to your chest and blowing the shit out of a busy street," Rub joked back.

"Hey man, don't joke about shit like that," Aziz retorted as he playfully punched Rub in the shoulder, "don't make us pull a jihad on your ass."

The three boys continued to walk, trading punches and laughs as the church grew ever closer. They were lighthearted, hardly even acknowledging that they were all armed and potentially being stalked by any number of maniacs. It felt like any other day back home.

And then Amanda Marquette, a.k.a. Girl # 18, darted out of the alley with a shriek. The three boys all stepped back with shock, Aziz letting loose a sharp yelp of surprise. On instinct, Rub almost shot her. With quick reflexes, Basim lashed out and knocked the boy's hand aside. He was glad that the other boy hadn't fired, but he couldn't blame him for wanting to attack her. She looked terrible. White suit covered in blood, gun gripped tightly in her hand, her face a mask of pain and fear and tears running down her cheeks. She looked like a monster. Her eyes were darting, fearful. She hardly seemed to recognize them.

"Amanda?" Basim cried out as he approached her. The girl's eyes locked onto his, and she sprinted toward him. Like a flash her arms were wrapped around his neck, and she was crying into his jacket. Confused, and more than a little scared, the boy wrapped his arms around her. She was babbling incoherently, but didn't seem to be hurt. Rub and Aziz approached the two uncertainly, looking out defensively with their guns held high.

"What happened to her?" Aziz asked.

"I don't know, she seems all right," Basim responded.

"Yeah, but covered in blood," Rub added.

"I don't think it's hers," Aziz replied.

"Then whose is it?" Rub asked.

"She was with Kendal," Basim said softly as he looked to the two boys. Horror dawned on their faces as the words sunk in, and they raised their guns again in fear. There was no way that Amanda could have killed Kendal, everyone knew that those two were attached at the hip. That left only one other possibility.

"That blood looks fresh," Rub said quickly.

"Unless Amanda took them out, whoever did this is close," Aziz concluded, checking the safety of his pistol. _Off. Ready to roll._

"Let's get to the others sooner rather than later, you know what I mean?" Rub asked nervously.

* * *

Isaac had a distinct feeling of déjà vu as he sat in the church's back room. Once again, he was surrounded by some of the best and brightest his school had to offer planning an insurrection. Once again, by doing so they threatened their own chances for survival. And once again, he was the one leading them to this point. The main difference this time was the people. Outside the game, he had brought together the best people who could organize a large scale protest. They were connected, they were popular, they could bring the numbers from all the different school social strata. They were good out of the game. Inside... he needed a different set of skills. He needed people who could think along with the game, who would know what needed to be done and act accordingly. But more than that he needed people he could trust, and for the most part he believed he had them.

Sophia Apollinar, a.k.a. Girl # 6, was a no-brainer. She had been in on the original protest, and was easily his best lieutenant. The others seemed to trust her more than him, and because she trusted him they could make sure commands went around as they had to. While they may not have always followed orders that came through them, once they had come through her or Christina, they tended to get done.

Julie Hewitt, a.k.a. Girl # 19, was also an easy pick for the inner circle. She was fairly popular and smart as a whip. She was a true believer, more staunchly argumentative for human rights and constitutionality than even he. Though she didn't really have the strength of Sophia, she was far and away one of the best minds he could've hoped to have on his side.

Lakisha Childs, a.k.a. Girl # 3, was a wild card. He knew her fairly well outside of the Battle Royale, but only from a truly technical standpoint. Whenever he needed information that was kept under lock and key, her computer skills had been more than helpful in the past. She wasn't exactly the biggest believer in the cause, but at the same time she trusted him. He only hoped he could truly trust her, as she was their key to removing the collars.

Amos... could have been a good help. At one time maybe. Outside of the game he had a good head on his shoulders and was a damn good reporter. Whether or not Isaac would consider him a friend was an entirely separate issue, as Amos had freely admitted that he hung around Isaac mostly because he knew he'd do something big one day and didn't want to miss out on it. In the game, all Amos had really done of any use was bring in a small group of people. He seemed to barely be holding things together as it was, but Isaac still needed him. Anyone who had led, was useful.

There was a rapping on the door to the church's back room. Although it was not locked, it was still a nice formality to maintain as far as Isaac was concerned.

"Come in."

Christina opened the door, looking fairly pleased with herself as she balanced the baseball bat on her shoulder.

"Got a late arrival Isaac," she said as she practically pushed Basim in. The young Iraqi boy looked positively confused as she closed the door behind him, though his smile did brighten when he saw Isaac.

"Holding your own secret backroom meetings now?" Basim asked with a smile that appeared forced. It was clear that he wanted to be somewhere else, but Isaac paid that thought no mind. They would be dispersing from the back room soon enough.

"I always have," Isaac said as he walked over and embraced his friend, "you've always just been missing out."

"Consider it covering my own ass," Basim responded as he surveyed the room. The other faces in the room eyed him nervously, but they were glad all the same. It seemed as if he was the last piece of the puzzle that Isaac was looking for, and he began to speak quickly.

"I know some of you have been here longer than others and know more than others, but I'm not going to get into all the details right now," Isaac said simply, "Suffice it to say we've got a plan to get the hell out of this game, and we're going to need everyone here to pull it off."

"What kind of plan?" Amos asked. Isaac did his best to fight back the irritation that Amos' ignorance of his previous statement caused, and continued on unabated.

"I'll apprise you and whoever else got here late as soon as the meeting is over. I know you've all risked a considerable amount of life and limb to make it here, and your service will not go unnoticed. I have been provided with... information from an anonymous benefactor that will aid us in both removing these accursed collars and escaping the game. So far as we can tell, this information is legit, and it will be of the greatest help in getting us out of here. For obvious reasons we cannot discuss details aloud, as doing so would likely silence us forever. As well, it is of the utmost importance that we keep the exact details of the plans between as few people as possible, for the safety of the plan. Are there any more questions?"

Realizing that his shoe was untied, Isaac sat down and began to retie it. Of course he would have greatly preferred giving them the rest of his pitch standing up (it would certainly look more official at the very least), but this would have to do. They all looked at him with the mildest hint of confusion on their faces, wondering what was going to happen next.

"What assurances do we have that we can take off the collars?" Basim asked.

Without even giving him a chance to reply, Lakisha spoke up, "After reviewing some of the data that we have been provided and doing a rough exam of a few of the collars, I have come up with a few ideas that will probably work in removing the collars before detonation. I'll need some tools for experimenting on it, but I'm almost positive I can pull it off."

_Almost positive. Way to sell them on the pitch Lakisha. Shall have a talk with you later about building confidence._

"These details will all be addressed in the meeting, with more specifics kept on a strictly need-to-know basis. Before anything else, I need to know here and now, do you all trust me?"

Though there was a distinct sense of wary hesitation in the room, all of them did murmur enough approval that Isaac felt fit to smile.

"Good. I trust all of you too, and I really am glad to see that all of you have stepped up as needed. This will go a lot easier with some... support. Right now, _that _more than anything else is what we need to make this work. I need you all out there to act as examples. Clap, cheer as necessary, and they will follow you. If it looks like someone approves, someone they know and respect, they will follow. They will do what is right, and we will all escape this game together!"

The energy in the room had shot up considerably, and although none of them were still all that sure that they knew what was going on, they were about as supportive of the plan as they could be. They filed out of the room one at a time, leaving Sophia and Isaac in the room alone. Although she had had her skeptical moments, she was glad to see the Isaac she knew and cared about showing through the reclusive general façade that he had cultivated in the game.

"That was a nice speech. Made you sound like an egotistical prick, but it was still pretty nice," Sophia said with her crooked smile. Isaac did not return it.

"Yeah, well I am an egotistical prick. Gotta deliver what the people are expecting, right?" Isaac replied with a grim look on his face. Sophia caught the look quickly.

"What's wrong?"

Isaac laughed an ugly laugh. If dead bodies were capable of laughing, it would have sounded like that.

"We're in a Battle Royale, that's what's wrong. We're in a Battle Royale, and almost everyone, hell, maybe everyone out there is going to die," Isaac said grimly, "and I'm going to be the one leading them there."

Sophia was shocked to see this side of Isaac. Within the game he had sounded like the consummate optimist, unwavering in his certainty of their escape plan's success. Words would not form in her mouth, and Isaac removed his glasses, wiping away what looked like tears from the corners of his eyes.

"I am a prophet of death, they will say. I am the Moses leading people not to their salvations, but instead delivering them into evil. I think I may be a monster. I think I may always have been," Isaac said, straightening himself out and pulling the glasses back on.

"But the plan-"

"Technically speaking there is a chance the plan could still work. We may be able to use our weapons to break through the defenses, Lakisha may be able to help us remove the collars, but after that... our chances of survival are very limited at best. Even if we manage to do everything, the chances of more than one or two of us even getting out of here is slim at best..." Isaac said almost wistfully as he stared off into space. He didn't seem to expect the slap that Sophia hit him with, but at the same time he didn't fight it. He knew he had something like that coming.

"You son of a bitch," the scarred girl shot back as she punched him in the stomach. Hard. He went down without a protest.

"You led us here, you promised you were going to save all our lives, and you just resign yourself to letting us all die?" Sophia practically shrieked as tears formed in her own eyes, "You do all this, you give everyone here hope, and you don't even believe in it. You deserve to rot in hell for this."

"In a game like this, they need all the hope they can get," Isaac responded simply. He didn't even seem to mind all that much when Sophia kicked him in the gut.

"If they don't have hope, they're going to play!" Isaac shot back. She didn't kick him.

"We aren't animals. We're good people. We're Americans," Isaac said as he struggled back to his feet, "but this game is designed to make us into monsters. We team up, we have hope, and we have the smallest chance for making a difference and escaping. We have to have that hope. We have to take that chance. We have to hope that those who die don't die in vain, and that if they do at least we can use their sacrifices to send a message. Send a message to the people that we will not back down, and that there are people willing to fight the system that makes something this horrible possible."

Sophia looked to the boy she had considered a dear friend with a mixed look of disgust, pity and horror on her face. "What the hell... what the hell makes it possible for a person to think like that?"

Isaac laughed that ugly laugh again, looking to the girl with eyes that appeared damn-near bloodshot behind that pair of wire-rimmed glasses he always wore.

"It's a long story, and you wouldn't believe me if I told you..."


	27. Isaac's Story

**

* * *

Isaac's Story

* * *

**

**

* * *

2001 – First Annual United States Battle Royale (Massachusetts)**

* * *

They'd been hyping it up for nearly a week. _The First Annual United States Battle Royale._ It was supposed to be one of the coolest things ever to be on TV, and finally, _finally _America had gotten a hold of it. They had waited long enough, seeing how well the ratings and merchandising income would work for Japan and France once they had started televising their games, and it was time enough. They had set up a game in a small island off the coast of Massachusetts, kidnapped a group of high schoolers and let them loose with a bunch of weapons.

And a twelve-year-old boy by the name of Isaac Freemantle had watched it all gleefully. True, it had been a marathon, and having never really stayed up for three days straight (_it's been three days, right?_) before was really beginning to take its toll on him, but it had been worth it. It had _all _been worth it. The game was better than anyone could have expected. Of course there were worries that the kids wouldn't fight, that without the proper incentives Americans wouldn't take to the game like the Japanese or French kids. Those worries were quickly allayed, and the blood spilled by the gallons. Everyone thought Mark was a goner when he stepped out of the school building with only a hacksaw to his name, but after having sawed off two of his classmates heads and picked up an Uzi, he looked like a favorite to win. Charlie had systematically murdered all of his friends to protect his girlfriend Sheila, gaining each of their trust before murdering them with whatever he had handy. And the lighthouse girls... the massacre had been beautiful. Glorious. Grotesque. Blood all over, body parts (and pieces of body parts) flying every which way. They were all worried that the girls were just going to try and wait out the game, die without dignity. They had proven everyone wrong.

It was a great game, and Isaac would have been excited enough for that alone. Still, the game paled in comparison to the one simple fact that had Isaac _really _excited. He had friends. He _finally _had friends.

The Freemantles by their very nature were a family of patriots. They hung the flag every major holiday, voted with what they believed to be the best interests of the country, and followed every program that would support America in its time of need. With the US economy in a slump, they jumped at the chance to pay for the viewing of the First Annual United States Battle Royale. At the very least, it would stimulate the economy. At the most, it'd be one of the greatest televised spectacles in American history. So they had called for the pay-per-view, three-day viewing package, and planned to watch as much of it as possible.

But Isaac wanted more. Much more. For the longest time he had been something of a withdrawn, quiet boy. People called him bright, intelligent and well-spoken (when he did speak that is), but there were few people who would ever actually call him friend. He was sick and tired of being the guy without friends, and trying to break in from the ground up was damn near impossible to do. He needed something big, something bold, something insane. It took a lot of wrangling, it took a lot of organizing and pleading with his parents, but he had managed to pull it off. He'd gotten them to bring the big-screen down to the basement and set up something of a non-stop Battle Royale party. Any kids from school who wanted to watch the carnage could, and they had shown up in droves. It was a party like no other, and it was all because of Isaac.

And yet, there were few who seemed to notice him. Sure, everyone gave the occasional planned pleasantry, and they were all glad that they didn't have to pay for the game themselves, but most of them were simply around to mooch off of the food and drinks that he'd talked his parents into providing. There had to be forty people in the basement, most camped out around the TV, many more passed out in sleeping bags or over chairs and couches that they had moved in. _It's not all about you. They're into the game, you're into the game, it's a helluva day. They'll all be into you afterwards, they'll all be your friends then. Just trust them._

Blood shot across the screen, and almost everyone who was awake enough cheered. Mark had chased down Dave, shot out his knees and kicked his head in. Only six players left. It was going to go down to the wire, definitely. Tired, and punch drunk beyond all measure, the boy saw something he assumed to be a miracle. For the first time in days there was no line for the bathroom. The boy stood, stretching his aching limbs and feeling his joints pop one at a time. He was exhausted, eyelids feeling like they each weighed a hundred tons. But still he stood, determined to make that last march before the game ended. _Just go to the bathroom, wake yourself up, grab another Coke or ten and watch this thing wind down to the end. It's gotta be soon now, right? Gotta be soon, and then we're gold-_

Ten steps from the bathroom the whole world went black. Isaac was vaguely aware that he was falling, but in his mind there was nothing he could do. Everything began to swirl, his vision went blurry, and the carpet began to rush up rather quickly to meet him. _Three days, three days without sleep, right?_

The boy came to with the sound of cheering filling his ears. He jerked upright, noting rather oddly that he was not where he had fallen before. Someone had moved him to a couch and put a blanket over him. It was an old, Benny the Bunny blanket he had had since he was four. The boy had been under the impression that it had been thrown away long ago, but someone had apparently found it in a closet. The cheering was intense. A sharp sting of fear went down the boy's spine.

"Did someone win?" he asked, his voice filled with a near-maniacal terror.

"Nah, there's still two left," a girl's voice said from beside him, "I'd have woken you up in a few minutes anyway. Can't miss the grand finale now, can we?"

Isaac looked to the other figure who had been sitting on the couch next to him. He recognized her in theory, as he had seen her at the party sometime over the last few days, but in his waning consciousness he could barely put a face to a name. Slender, pale white skin with a hint of freckles on her cheeks, auburn hair tied in two pigtails that lay in front of her shoulders, dressed in light pink pajamas. Was probably cute, though he hadn't had the adequate dose of hormones to make him realize that just yet.

"You passed out pretty bad there, thought you'd hit your head hard," she said with the greatest of care, "seems you just needed sleep, so we moved you here."

"Thanks," the boy said with a groan as his memory began to come back, "who's we?"

"Me and Richie," she said, then adding quickly, "he's my friend."

Things were beginning to fall into place more. Isaac had known Richie Miller for a long time, from back when he and his family still lived up in Amberlaine. They were decent friends, if not the greatest in the world. When he'd heard that Richie would be visiting some family down in Kalamazoo (a ten minute drive from Isaac's house), it seemed only natural to invite him over for the party. He vaguely recalled that Richie had brought a girl over with him, some family friend who'd spent most of her time hanging out with the rest of the girls and covering her eyes during the really bloody bits. Richie had simply spent too much of the time sleeping, often waking up just after a great kill had occurred.

"Thanks for helping me out," Isaac said with a warm smile.

"No problem," the girl said with a rather sweet smile all her own, "My name is Marley, by the way."

He was just about to give his name when an intense bunch of cheers came from the other side of the room. The two ran to join the rest, watching in grim horror as the final moments of the game began to play out. Isaac noted with grim amusement that Charlie and Sheila, one of three couples in the game, had made it to the end with a fairly impressive body count to their names. It seemed that true love hadn't conquered all in the end, as Sheila had set off a grenade right next to Charlie. By all rights, she looked to be the winner. Charlie was covered in blood, and one of his arms looked like it had been ripped off in the explosion.

Nobody expected him to get up. Nobody expected him to have that murderous look in his eyes. Nobody expected him to pull that piece of shrapnel from his leg, and stab his girlfriend to death with it. It was shocking. It was awesome. It was terrifying. Isaac felt a great lump enter his throat when Marley, eyes transfixed on the screen, grabbed his hand in fear.

_I'm totally doing this again next year._

**

* * *

2002 – Second Annual United States Battle Royale (Texas)**

* * *

This game was supposed to be awesome. Hell, they got a bunch of kids who already should know how to use guns and let them run loose on one another. It was Texas, it should have been bloodier than hell. Instead, there were a bunch of peace-loving hippie types who had banded together in a mass suicide pact instead of playing the game. Sure, they killed from time to time, at least whenever anyone tried to attack them, but they didn't hunt. They stayed put. They _wanted _to die. And it made for boring TV.

The party had started out even bigger than the one before (the first one was enough of an event that there was no way in hell that anyone wanted to miss a second game), but had dwindled around the third day into nothingness. People had started leaving at around the end of the second day when it became clear that the hippies were going to win, and Isaac had a few dozen phone numbers of people to call in case the game got any more exciting. As the game's last few hours began to tick down, it didn't look like things were going to improve any. _Looks like they're all going to blow up after all. At least that oughta be cool, right? Still, that's two years in a row without a surviving winner. Can they keep continuing like that?_

At least the game slowing down hadn't been all that bad. There were maybe only a dozen die-hards left still watching the game, but they were mostly sleeping. Richie had only really been able to stay the first day, his trip back home came sooner than he had expected (and he seemed pretty damn pissed about it too). So it was a mediocre game and a mediocre party, but Isaac didn't mind. It just gave him a pretty good excuse to hang out with Marley, and that was always time well spent as far as he was concerned.

In the wake of the first Battle Royale, Isaac and Marley had become good friends. She only lived a ten-minute bike ride away from him, and when the school year had started he was delighted to learn that they had a few classes with each other. It was true, she wasn't the best friend he had been hoping for (_can you really be best friends with a girl?_), but he was definitely glad to have her in his life. She loved to read almost as much as he did, and was a pretty enthusiastic athlete. All throughout the summer she had tried to convince Isaac to take part in the occasional pickup baseball game in the park, but he always turned down the offer in preference of watching her play. At least she seemed to enjoy having him there...

While most of the other die-hards tried to stay awake and watch the game, Isaac and Marley had a pretty good game of chess going on, occasionally checking in on the progress or grabbing a few hours of shuteye. Well, _pretty good _may have been a bit generous (all things considered, Isaac was kicking Marley's ass), but it was still pretty fun for the both of them. With the methodical placement of his bishop, Isaac smiled.

"Checkmate," he said with a wide smile.

Marley looked at the game board and scowled, knocking over her king with what almost sounded like a growl, "I'm never going to get the hang of this game."

"Ah come on," Isaac said as he began to place their pieces back on the board, "it's not that bad. I'll go easy on you this time."

"You said that last game, and you still kicked my ass," Marley said, sticking out her tongue to add extra emphasis. Isaac could only snicker.

"Well, I'll go even easier, how's that sound?" he said. _What do you know, I think I even mean it._

"Deal," she said, continuing to watch Isaac place the pieces, "though I still don't think I'm ever going to get the hang of it. I'm not a mental game kind of girl, give me something good and physical. Like that."

She pointed to the screen, kept a broad smile, "I would totally kick ass in something like that. Totally."

"You think you could win a Battle Royale?" Isaac said, his voice sounding rather amused. Practically every guy (and more than a few girls) at school and at the party would constantly talk about what they would do if they were ever in a Battle Royale. So many talking strategy, how many people they would try to get together, how many guns they would grab and what type, how many people they would kill. It was all bullshit as far as Isaac was concerned. Most people sent into the game would probably have something of a breakdown and cry for their mommies (like a lot of players in the first, and a few in the second did) just waiting to die. Most of the guys who said that they would totally win the Battle Royale... well, Isaac usually did his best not to laugh. He didn't want to laugh at Marley though, she probably wouldn't like it very much (_and she punches hard too_).

"Maybe, yeah," Marley said as she pulled a few strands of hair behind her ear. She had taken to wearing her hair down, and Isaac was more than aware that her look had caught some of the older guys' attentions.

"Well if you won, you'd probably be the first."

"The first winner?"

"No, the first girl winner," Isaac joked. At that, she did punch him in the shoulder. Hard.

"Hey, come on, look at the kinds of girls they got! Most of them don't know what they're doing, most of them still scream when they're scared and get shot for it, and the only ones who've really done well are the ones who take things on opportunistically, not the ones who've really played," Isaac said defensively.

"Yeah, they were smart," Marley replied.

"Because the game's as much mental as it is physical?" Isaac teased. Marley grimaced at that response and stuck her tongue out once more. Isaac looked over to the screen. It would be midnight in Texas in a few minutes. This fact didn't seem to escape Marley's attention either.

"Come on," she said sounding rather bored, "let's go watch them blow up and get this over with."

**

* * *

2003 – Third Annual United States Battle Royale (California)**

* * *

It was down to the Final Two. Carter James vs. Ashley Vasquez. It had been the hottest and most amazing Battle Royale that any of them could have recalled. Marie sniping people from the tower, only to get taken out at close range! Joel and his droogs hunting people down and slaughtering them like animals! The return of the game's first winner, Charlie Voorhees (though for some stupid reason they called him Damien now)! The battles had been fierce, bloody, and personal. From the very beginning, Isaac (and, well, pretty much everyone else) had been a huge Charlie supporter. Sure, there were other players who had pretty good fanbases too; Marie, Katie, Paul, and of course Joel, but the real fans were behind Charlie. He had won once before, and they wanted to see if he could pull it off again.

As things always tended to go, Marley was a bit of an outsider. From the very beginning she had chosen Ashley as her winner, and had stuck by her the entire game. For the longest time it looked like Ashley was a goner when she and the rest of her friends were pinned down by Marie in the sniper's tower, but she had prevailed. Immense luck and a lack of fear when it came to good-old-fashioned-American-homicide had made her into a survivor. And here she was in the Final Two, missing an eye and banged up to no end, yet still the better off of the two. Carter was badly burned, it looked like he already should have died. And yet, he still lived. Somehow.

They were getting high, singing old songs that Isaac didn't recognize, waiting for the game to come to some sort of conclusion. It looked like they were going to keep things until the last minute, and Isaac was hoping for it. _Just give me two more minutes, one more minute..._

It was ready. He folded up the shirt quickly and hid it under his arm. Taking the seat on the couch in front of the TV that Marley had held for him, the boy smiled.

"It's about time," Marley said distractedly, "they just started talking about doing a Russian Roulette."

"Russian Roulette?" Isaac asked. He was disappointed in the two. Both Ashley and Carter had proven to be worthy warriors (Carter moreso in the end, he was rather impressed with how the boy had brutalized Charlie), and Russian Roulette just seemed to diminish either of their accomplishments into something akin to random luck.

"Yeah. What were you doing there anyway?" Marley asked.

"Making this for you," Isaac said with a grin. It had taken some quick Photoshop work, a spare t-shirt and the last of the iron-on printer sheets in the package, but it came out well. He had blown up a yearbook photo of Ashley Vasquez on the front of the shirt with the words 'ASHLEY ROCKS!' beneath them. The gift went over about as well as Isaac could have expected, and Marley practically squealed with joy. It looked like she wanted to say more, but looking at the screen caused her to quiet up quickly.

It was starting.

The assembled crowd in Isaac's basement watched on the edge of their seats as the final two players in the Third Annual United States Battle Royale traded their revolver back and forth. When the final shot came down to Ashley, Marley looked practically heartbroken. She had come so close, been through so much, and to lose it on the last shot...

The shot was a dud. The two players grabbed guns, pointed them at each others heads. It was down to the wire. They were scared. The viewers were tense. It was going to be epic.

Ashley pulled the trigger first. Carter's head exploded onto the cinderblock wall of the starting bunker. The room erupted in cheers, and money exchanged hands as various bets were won and lost. Isaac and Marley jumped up cheering, embracing each other and otherwise enjoying themselves immensely. There was finally a winner, and she was a _good _one too.

Before Isaac knew what was happening, Marley kissed him. Much to his surprise, he didn't mind it very much. It felt good. Felt natural. Felt _right._

**

* * *

2004 – Fourth Annual United States Battle Royale (West Virginia)**

* * *

Isaac should have been happy. His Battle Royale parties were becoming something of a regular event, and this one should have been the best yet. They had thought that the California game was the most brutal and violent yet, but it was _nothing _compared to West Virginia. Most of the kids they had gotten to play in it were from the backwoods, and most of them knew how to fight rather brutally.

And to top it off, he was in love. Never before in his life had he considered that he would ever be in love, but he was. _Found the woman of your dreams and you're only fifteen. Gotta love how things like that work out, don't ya?_ She was sitting in her usual spot on the couch, watching the game and looking positively radiant. Puberty had been much more kind to her than it had to Isaac. She had filled out into a lean, beautiful woman, while he had sprouted up more than a foot and looked like a tall skeleton because of it. She kept telling him to eat more, work out some, build up muscle if he could. Isaac had tried (she'd finally been able to talk him into playing some sports with her), but it hadn't been easy. _Give it a couple years and you'll be looking pretty good..._

Still... the boy wasn't happy. And it was all Yoshiko Kanbe's fault.

Yoshiko had come with Rich. He was a friend from Amberlaine who had never seen a Battle Royale before, and he had an odd sense of curiosity to it. As far as Isaac was concerned, the more bodies the merrier. But Yoshiko... he was having a hard time of it. He was watching the people watching the game more than the actual game itself, a distinct look of disgust and fear across his face. Isaac didn't understand. Several times the boy tried to convince Rich to call his mom and get them out of there, but he just kept shutting the boy up.

Ultimately Isaac was able to catch the boy's attention when they were in the kitchen for a snack break.

"Hey, you all right?" Isaac asked. The other boy was tiny, wiry. Looked like he spent most of his time with a smile on his face and was unused to feeling the way he was now.

"No. No I'm not," Yoshiko said, "you know you people are fucked in the head, right?"

"What?" Isaac asked, genuinely bewildered. He'd never had anyone just come into his house and talk to him like that, and he was shocked to say the very least.

"Yeah. You're cheering for a bunch of kids dying, and you don't see anything wrong with that? You're fucked in the head. They're people. They aren't just players, they aren't actors, they're real fucking people with real lives, and you're just watching them die."

"Hey, we're just doing what everyone else is man," Isaac said with his hands out, trying to calm the situation.

"No, not everyone else is doing this. Just the fucked people. The last time people enjoyed watching people fighting people to the death was in a place called Rome, and it fell pretty fast. None of us are all that far away from that, you know? The Greater Republic of East Asia, the US, fucking France, we're all on the way out. This game, this is just a death rattle by a bunch of people who don't realize they're dying, getting off on the insane fucking hedonism before they collapse. I thought this wouldn't be bad like the stories I heard, thought it might be fun like everyone else said. Instead... you're all fucked in the head."

The boy calmly grabbed a bag of popcorn and began munching, "Me, I'm just staying up here for the rest of the game. If you got any decency, any humanity in you, you do the same."

Isaac was angry. He ignored the boy, he went down and watched the rest of the game. He cheered with everyone else whenever someone died, he found his favorites (personally he had hoped Clay would win, but he didn't even crack the Top Twenty), he made out with Marley for almost an hour when everyone else was asleep, and still... still something the boy had said stuck with him. _They're people. They're people, and we're watching them die._

When everyone had left, Isaac had gone online and started digging. He looked up as much information on the people who had died in the game as he could. He looked beyond the information posted by the people who ran the game, and found out who they really were. He found their yearbook photos. Found out what clubs they took part in. Found their myspace pages with all the misspelled comments and messages to one another.

For the first time since he started watching the Battle Royale games, Isaac Freemantle began to feel sick.

**

* * *

Summer 2006**

* * *

Isaac hadn't watched the Fifth, or even the Sixth US Battle Royale's. At first it was just an experiment, to see if it could be done. It was a lot easier than expected. Instead of watching, he just spent his time looking into the kids who played the game. What they liked. What they did before the game. What they would never be doing again. What their yearbook quotes were...

Marley didn't understand. There was a lot she didn't understand. If he loved her any less, they might have had some serious problems. But the Battle Royale was such a small portion of their lives that it didn't really matter. They were together. They were happy, living their lives and looking to the future.

But life was making things like that more difficult. Isaac's father had received a raise and decided to move the family back to Amberlaine in 2005, a forty minute drive from Marley. For the two months they were apart, life was horrible. They called almost every night, talked for hours and rang up bills that would have been expensive if his parents were any less rich. When he got a car, everything seemed to go back to normal. They would see each other regularly, and she was even allowed to sleep over on weekends. During the especially cold January of 2006, they made love for the first time. Life was good. It was always going to be good.

And then Marley had to move. If the move had been local, that would have been fine. But she was moving _away. Far _away.

"Tallahassee?" Isaac asked, trying to keep himself together.

"Yeah," Marley responded. She had no issues letting the tears roll down her cheeks.

"What the hell is in Tallahassee?"

"My mom's office transferred her. It's a really good opportunity for her, and she's always wanted to do this, and, and..." Marley broke down crying. She never cried. That was one of the things that Isaac always loved most about her. She would get emotional from time to time, sure, but she was never the weepy type of girl. She was never one to wallow in her problems. She always confronted them head on, and went through them. She was a fighter.

Isaac held her close, speaking softly into her ear, "It's all right. It's going to be all right."

"Well how do you figure that?" she spat back with a sense of grim humor in her voice.

"Well, we both graduate in another year, right?"

"Of course," she said calmly.

"Well, then it's not so bad then. So we graduate next year. If you want to come back here, you can come to college up here. If you like it down there, I'll go to college down there. We only spend a year or so apart from each other, tops, and we call and e-mail each other as much as we can in the meantime."

A smile seemed to form across her tear-streaked face, "You mean it?"

"Always," he responded by placing a soft kiss on her lips.

"I love you," he said with a smile.

"As I love you," she responded, "always. Forever."

"Forever," he repeated.

**

* * *

Summer 2007 – Seventh Annual United States Battle Royale (Florida)**

* * *

The world had ended. Had he been more together, Isaac would have thrown up. Instead he sat watching the television like a zombie, watching as they repeated the clip over and over in grotesque detail. They liked to do that when the deaths were bloody.

He had just hoped that they wouldn't do it for Marley.

Isaac had watched the game with a grim sense of hope combined with an overwhelming sense of terror. Like the past two years he planned to avoid the game, but seeing the school that the class had been picked from... he had to watch.

For a while there it even looked like she was going to make it. She knew how to run; she even had a pistol that she seemed to know how to use. She'd gotten in a couple of small skirmishes with girls and boys alike, but a few well-placed shots seemed to scare them away rather effectively. Marley was a fighter, and although he knew her chances for survival were slim at best, he still had hope. She'd watched the game before, she would know how to play properly. How often had they had strategy conversations considering every possible permutation of how to play? She'd made it to the Top 11, she if she'd just managed to avoid the hunters she could get away easily.

But she wasn't careful enough. A boy by the name of Jared had been taking random shots at her with a shotgun. He missed with every one, but she was terrified enough to run instead of fight. If she had just made a stand, hid behind a tree and tried to kill him, she might have stood a chance. But she ran into the glades. She ran into that shallow river and didn't see the gator. The prehistoric beast showed the girl no mercy, biting her foot as she passed and almost immediately going into a death spiral. She was flung from her feet, her gun twirling end over end through the air. There was no way she could defend herself from the vicious attack. And yet, she still fought. She fought hard. She kicked, punched, screamed mercilessly at the gator as it tore into her leg with brutal ferocity. It was only after she managed to gouge out one of its eyes with her thumb that the creature let her be, quickly waddling away with her right foot still in its mouth. The water had filled with her blood, she was dying and dying fast.

But still she fought. She crawled for the shore, trying to escape her inevitable fate. The hunter had to have heard her struggle, but if she could just hide, get a tourniquet on her leg... there was still a chance. There was always still a chance.

She was half-hidden in a small grove of reeds when Jared finally caught up with her. Raising his shotgun, he got up-close and personal with the girl Isaac loved. It was clear he didn't want to miss again. He cocked the weapon's slide and calmly blew a hole the size of a basketball in Marley's chest. She was pleading for her life at the time.

Isaac wanted to die. His world, his reason for being had just been killed on live television, and there was nothing he could have done for her. He could not comfort her in her pain, he could not try to save her life. He could not even defiantly scream at the cameras for killing the woman that he loved. All he could do was wish for God to strike him down, grant him the merciful death that she had not been granted in the hopes of catching her on the other side. Tears rolled down his face freely, and he screamed in his basement at the unfairness of it all. He screamed until his lungs felt like they would burst. He screamed until he felt like passing out. He screamed so hard, it almost felt like the despair had left his body entirely. He screamed until everything began to make sense again. _Despair gets you nowhere Isaac. You have not accomplished a single thing in your life by despairing over anything. You cannot avenge Marley simply by giving in and hoping for death. No... you must not despair. You must find..._

"...revenge," the boy whispered to himself. Yes... revenge would be the key. Suicide by itself would say nothing, he would simply be another teenager who couldn't handle growing up and would be thrown in as a statistic like the rest of them. But if he tried to take some of the bastards responsible for this down in the process... well, that might accomplish something, now wouldn't it?

It wouldn't be easy. People had been trying to take on the government for too long for what they had been doing to American civil liberties and freedoms, and thus far only The Raptors and a few smaller terrorist organizations had been getting anything even resembling success. Anyone who had tried to do something smaller had been either strung up a lamppost or dropped off in Bunazca, never to be heard from again. If he wanted any chance of recognition, any chance of maybe drawing one of the bigger groups to his cause, any shot at avenging Marley with as much blood as possible... he would have to do something huge. _You can't do this alone. If you're just one man, they'd be able to shut you up easy. But get a lot of people, some bombs, guns, maybe attract the bad guys to you... you can show them a real good time like they'd never forget. Maybe grab The Raptors' attention, have them bail you and any survivors out, that'd be pretty sweet. Or if you die... well, at least you'll probably see her again._

But it would be hard to talk people into doing. He had never told anyone about Marley, and even if he had they wouldn't follow him for that. It would be one madman's quest to avenge his fallen love as far as they were concerned. They wouldn't give a shit about him. But if he could find something, _anything_ for them to believe in, a symbol that they could all get behind in righteous anger, he could pull it off. He could get the people into violent action against the government, find his revenge.

So Isaac waited for the opportunity to arise.

**

* * *

November 30, 2007**

* * *

Ralph Fogal was executed for taking part in an unsanctioned anti-government rally. Pictures of him hanging from a lamppost made the cover of every newspaper in Michigan, as well as some in Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois.

Isaac's patience had paid off.

**

* * *

December 21, 2007 – Eighth Annual United States Battle Royale (Michigan)**

* * *

Sophia looked upon Isaac with righteous indignation as he told his story. Though it was hard not to have the details tug at her heartstrings, she could not lose the anger that filled her every thought.

"So you arranged the protest, you got all of us in on it and probably got us drawn into a Battle Royale because of it, all for a girl that you never even told any of us about?" she asked with measured breaths. It all sounded so insane that part of her wanted to believe it all to be a lie. None of it sounded like the Isaac Freemantle she had known for years. But his face never faltered, the resolve in his voice never wavering. He was telling the truth.

"Not just," Isaac corrected, his voice calming down considerably, "I have believed in everything I said, and I do mourn for Ralph as well, but yes, it was all started because of her. I never meant for it to lead to this. I would never wish anything this horrible upon anyone as innocent as the rest of the people here. I deserve this more than anyone."

"You're damn right you do," Sophia shot back, pinching the stress out of the bridge of your nose, "but we're all stuck in here with you, and since it'd fuck with the hope all those poor bastards in there have I guess I'm not going to kill you now."

Isaac felt the slightest tinge of worry at that comment, but the edges of a smile that began to spread across her face told him that there was no need to worry.

"So there's still a chance?" she asked, her face a mix of anger and fearful hope that even managed to pierce Isaac's heart.

"Of course, slim though it may be," Isaac responded calmly.

"Then you go out there, and you give the people their hope. You give it to them straight, and don't lie anymore than you have to unless you want me out there telling them everything you just told me. If they buy it, they have as much a chance of getting out of this as you and me. If they don't, they're free to leave and take chances on their own. Sound fair?" It wasn't a question, it was a demand.

"Yes, it does," Isaac responded, "though can I ask a question of you?"

"Of course," Sophia responded sharply, though her voice had lost much of the edge it held before.

"Will you still be with me here? Do you still trust me after all I've told you?" Isaac asked earnestly. It looked like a question that Sophia would rather not have answered, but at the same time she seemed to know that Isaac would have persisted in finding an answer from her regardless. Closing her eyes, Sophia forced the answer to come out.

"Of course I will. What they did to you... what they've done to all of us sucks. We would be stupid not to try and get out no matter how slim the chances may be," she opened her eyes, "and you are my friend. Until you give me reason to do otherwise, I will stick by you."

Quickly wiping his face and trying to compose himself, Isaac forced a smile, "Then let's get this show on the road while we still can."


	28. Hour 15: 42 Contestants Remaining

**

* * *

Hour 15**

**42 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

It was a good burn. Nick McIntyre, a.k.a. Boy # 24, was more than pleased to see how things were going. The house that had been in flames was beginning to die down, most everything already charred to cinders and collapsing in on itself. Under most circumstances he would have been disappointed at the sight, but not this time. No, the fire had finally spread. It was catching on the other house, its roof already a small conflagration in its own right. It would only be a matter of time before enough of the burnt parts collapsed in on the main house and caught the natural gas that had been filling it over the past few hours. With a little luck (and maybe a bit of coaxing), there would be something of a domino effect as the three houses in a row he'd opened the gas lines upon caught and exploded. With no fire department to put things right again... there was every chance that the entire town might just go up in one massive fireball, and nobody would be there to punish Nick. _Bumpity, bumpity bump._

It would be soon. It would have to be soon. It would burn so hard...

The boy giggled rather loudly at the thought, completely oblivious to the figure who had snuck up behind him in the deserted street.

* * *

It was coming down to the wire. Isaac had sent his lieutenants out, the meeting seemed to be over, and it was just a matter of waiting for him and Sophia to come out and take the stage. It was going to be a tense few minutes waiting for him to address the crowd. It was going to be even worse in the time that would follow, as there was no real certainty that the audience would like what he was selling.

There was a distinct energy in the room, and Hugo Diaz, a.k.a. Boy # 4, didn't know if it was a good thing or not. Everyone was itching for something to do, for some clue as to what the hell was going to happen next. He'd been with Isaac from the start, almost everyone knew that he was among the stronger proponents of the plan, but he had no answers. He wasn't one of the smarter people who'd be easy to bring in on a plan, and as far as he was concerned, that was all right. _Let the people who know what the hell they're s'posed to be doing do what they're s'posed to do._

"Looks like things are going to start soon," Conrad Ripley, a.k.a. Boy # 18, said. Before the game Hugo could hardly say that he knew the pudgy boy with the glasses and double-barreled shotgun, but in the game it was easy to tell that he was good people. He had a look about him that said he knew what was going on, and whenever they needed someone to do something, he'd be there.

"Looks like it," Hugo repeated back.

"So how do you think it's going to go?" Conrad asked.

"Knowing Isaac..." Hugo started, then thought better of it, "I think he's got a good speech up his sleeve. Something that'll get the people going one way or another."

"Think they'll buy it?" The skepticism was heavy in Conrad's voice, and though he wasn't the brightest bulb in the circuit Hugo did catch it.

"Some will, some won't. Think you will?" Hugo asked honestly.

"We'll see," Conrad replied, "maybe, maybe not. I'm afraid of what the hell's out there, but I'm even more afraid of all the people we got in here. This is a disaster waiting to happen, and I don't know if I want to stick around to see it happen."

"Just hear Isaac out," Hugo shot back, "you're good people, and right here we could use some good people, you dig?"

Conrad smiled subtly, "Yeah, I dig."

"Cool," Hugo responded as he hefted the heavy Tommy Gun higher, "grab a seat in the audience, I'll keep on door duty for the big show."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I figure Isaac's gonna want an audience for this one."

Without a question, Conrad swung his backpack onto his shoulder and began to make his way into the pews. He looked over his shoulder once to the massive Hugo and flashed a simple thumbs up. _Let's hope that he's got some hope goin' on here._

"So what was that all about?" Christina Montressor, a.k.a. Girl # 24, asked as she approached Hugo.

"Just telling him that Isaac knows what he's doing," Hugo responded simply.

"Good on ya," Christina replied, "there's a lot of people doubting Isaac now. That's bad for business, ya know?"

"Yeah, I do."

"But you trust Isaac, right? He knows what he's doing, right?" Christina said. It wasn't a question, but Hugo never would've needed to answer it as such.

"Of course I do, and of course he does. He's Isaac."

* * *

Amanda Marquette, a.k.a. Girl # 18, had lost the distinct sense of hysteria around her from when they had first found her. Although there were still tears streaming down her eyes and her voice was still hitching every so often, they were able to get some coherent answers out of her. Not that they wanted to hear what she had to say necessarily.

"Man that is fucked," Ruben "Rub" Wood, a.k.a. Boy # 5, said, "they really are a monster."

"There's monsters everywhere in here man, the announcement should tell you enough about that one," Aziz Haddad, a.k.a. Boy # 8, responded, "we're just lucky we're all in here together, at least we've got protection that way."

"Maybe we do, maybe we don't," Rub responded, "who's to say that nobody in here's got it in them to go on a killing spree?"

"Hey Rub, shut the fuck up all right?" Basim Sharafi, a.k.a. Boy # 13, said as he continued to stroke Amanda's hair. She had practically latched onto him ever since they had met outside. She was terrible then, but a few moments to relax (and a shot or two from Darwin's stash of vodka) and she was almost normal. Rub looked miffed that he had to quiet down, but considering the company they were keeping... he'd just have to make due. _He treats her like a goddamn puppy, and we're the ones who get stuck out in the cold. Great._

"We're safe in here," Basim said calmly to no one in particular, "we've got the numbers, we've got a lot of guns, and even if that monster were to follow you, there's no way anyone in their right mind would attack a group this size with the amount of weapons we've got. We're going to be fine, we're going to be all right..."

They watched as Sophia Apollinar, a.k.a. Girl # 6, stormed from the church's back room looking rather pissed off.

"Wonder what the hell that's about," Aziz mused.

"Probably got a cavity in one of the teeth in her vagina," Ruben tried to joke back. Nobody seemed to find it all that funny. They watched the door to the back room for a few moments longer. With Sophia out, it was clear that only Isaac remained. Just a few moments more, then this all would make sense. All of this chaos, all of this massive gathering, everything would make sense.

And then _he _entered the room.

* * *

For the first time in a long time that he could recall, Isaac Freemantle, a.k.a. Boy # 17, was nervous. It was easier having to address smaller groups of people, delegate tasks to lieutenants and underlings so they might be able to tell the rest of the core what to do. Now, he was doing it the hard way. There were nearly thirty people sitting before him waiting for some sort of absolution. There was a time when he had believed in his own abilities, believed in his own power to pull off what needed to be done. But it had all proved too crazy, too much of a long shot. There was always the chance that they could pull it off... but it would take a lot of work. It would take a lot of work, and almost absolute loyalty from everyone in on the plan. Sure, there were some who trusted him, some who would follow his every word because they believed in him. But they were a dying breed. Most of them seemed to have little trust in him or were simply ambivalent to whatever was going on. _Another fine mess you've gotten us all into._

Stepping behind the podium, the boy turned on the attached microphone. In a time long past it would have been used by a soft-spoken minister to address the entire church. With a powerful, booming voice, this would be no problem for Isaac. He turned the microphone on to make sure that he had their attention.

"Hello?" he said into the mike, "is this thing on?"

The slight ring of feedback that rang through the church garnered some appropriate laughter, and Isaac could only smile. The nervous energy was leaving him, it was easier to feel in control. _You know the words. You've practiced them so many times now. This is as good as it is going to get. Just hope they buy the pitch, and then maybe some of us will see the end of this day after all._

He looked up and down the aisles and could see that he had most everyone's attention held raptly. Christina looked up to him from her place in the center aisle and flashed thumbs up. Again, Isaac smiled.

"Good afternoon everyone," he began, "you all know me, but for the sake of saying it, my name is Isaac Freemantle. I am an American."

He let the cryptic remark sit with everyone for a moment before continuing, "We are _all _Americans. But some people up top, some big wigs who think they have a greater power than God almighty Himself, they seem to have forgotten that. They seem to be thinking that human life, that _our lives_, no longer seem to have any value to them. The words life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness used to hold power in this great country of ours, but they have been forgotten. They have been forgotten in the blind pursuit of money, and our lives are being sacrificed for it!"

He could hear a rumble of applause and some cheers erupting in the room. Although he could not make out all of them, the boy was fairly certain that not all of them were plants.

"They believe because we are young that we are property, _their_ property, and that they can do with us what they wish! They think that because we live under their supervision, under their constant crushing attention that we will do as we are told! They tell us to fight, and so they think we will roll over and obey them. And if I am allowed to be honest... I say we agree with them!"

A tense silence followed, the more skeptical people in the room beginning to mutter back and forth with one another.

"They want us to fight, and I say we fight! But let us focus our energies and efforts properly. Through fighting one another all we get is needless death and destruction. Right now we are united, and I say we use that unity and focus our energies on fighting the real enemy! Those government assholes want a fight, and I say let's bring it to their goddamned front door!"

There was some more muttering throughout the room, but mixed in with some applause and cheers. Isaac was hardly surprised when a boy towards the middle of the room stood up.

"How in the hell do you propose we do that?" Glen Counihan, a.k.a. Boy # 2, asked, "I don't know about you man, but I've been outside. We're surrounded by guys with guns and razor wire, and that's just the shit we can see! What about the rest of the US Army out there keeping track and making sure we can't get our asses out of here?"

Although there were a few scattered boos trying to quiet the boy down, Isaac did feel a twinge of nervous energy as he could see that there were several people who seemed to readily agree with what Glen was saying.

"We have been provided with information that would allow for an escape that has thus far proven fairly accurate. I know not who it came from, but it is clear that it came from the outside, and that it seems to come on the express condition for our escape. For the sake of keeping it under wraps I cannot elaborate any more on the matter lest the plan be compromised, but trust me when I say that this information is good!"

"How do we know it's good?" Hera Morgan, a.k.a. Girl # 20, asked, "How do we know that it's just not some trap dreamed up by the assholes behind this game to try and get our hopes up or lead us all to our deaths?"

This proclamation got even more nervous support. Those who were uncertain but uncommitted in their support for Isaac or the skeptics seemed to be actively debating one another over these last two thinking points. _That was always a possibility, and it was one that needed to be brought up. But what the hell do you say to that?_

"If I am going to be honest with you all, I must say that we don't know. Not for sure anyway..." At that, the room exploded. Whatever sides existed in the room before the speech were shouting back and forth at one another, very few with any arguments more articulate than 'shut up' and variants thereof, and Isaac could not blame them. It would be a hard sell, and if he hadn't seen the information with his own two eyes he would've doubted what he'd said too. The fight was getting bad, thank God nobody had started shooting in that time. Some people looked like they were ready to call it a day, gathering together supplies while still shouting to their fellow classmates. Vic Benedict, a.k.a. Boy # 23, and Alyssa Fallon, a.k.a. Girl # 23, snuck past Hugo and out the main doors. It wouldn't belong before more would follow if he didn't do anything about it. _It's all going downhill._ _You knew this was going to happen. It was bound to happen. But how are you going to fix it? There's nothing your plants in the audience can do now, how the fuck do you plan on fixing this?_

Perhaps the worst sight of all was the accusatory glare that Sophia shot him from her place in the audience. She said nothing, but she did not have to. Isaac knew well enough that it was her way of telling him he had to fix this mess, and he intended to. Reaching into his pocket, Isaac found the weapon he had been provided. The pamphlet that came with it called the device an M1917 Trench Knife, but Isaac knew it better as a Knuckle Duster. Halfway between a brass-knuckle and a bayonet, the weapon had gained prominence during the first World War where it saw much use as a hand to hand weapon. One sweeping motion of the arm and you could puncture a man's helmet and skull with it. Raising his arm high, Isaac brought it down in a powerful arc, slamming the weapon into the podium almost to the hilt with a sharp, almost ear-piercing crack. Even the most ardent fighters had been forced into silence by the sound, and once again all attention was on the boy on the pulpit.

"You all know I trust that this is exactly what they want? They want us fighting; they want us at each others throats. They want us to forget who we are, what we were before we came here! They want us to be animals, not classmates! They don't want us to be the people who go to dances with each other, get drunk behind the gym on Friday nights, go to pep rallies and homecomings. I'm not going to fool myself into thinking that very many of you actually like me, but look at each other! Take one long look at each other, and seriously try to tell me that you can't find at least three or four people in this room you wouldn't call a friend! I defy you to tell me that you want to see anyone else in this room dead!"

Silence reigned in the room as the remaining people in the church looked back and forth to one another. Before anyone could cut him off, Isaac continued.

"Are our odds for survival great? No. I am not going to lie to you and tell you that I can get you all out of here. The fighting will be hard, what we need to do will be hard, but if we all pull together to do it, we stand a chance. Don't you see? That's all we really need! If we can pull together, if we can make a push as one together we can prevail. We can escape. We can live as free people. We will mourn those who fall, but those who make it will be free!" The spontaneous smatter of cheers and applause surprised Isaac, but he was glad to see that they weren't being shouted down this time.

"If we fight together and as one, there is no way that they can stop us! Can you dig it?" More cheers, more applause.

"It will be a long hard road, but we will be together! Can you dig it?" The applause seemed like it was going to become deafening. Even some of the more skeptical seemed to prefer the option of sticking together and escaping over taking their chances in the game.

"Together, as one, we will escape this game. Can you dig it?" Isaac swung his arms out wide in the air theatrically, enjoying the heavy applause. For a moment, it seemed like everything was going to work out. Everything seemed like it was going to make sense. For the briefest of moments in the Battle Royale, there was no fear.

That was when Brenda Lennon, a.k.a. Girl # 15, stood up. She had something to say.

* * *

Nick never saw the attack coming. Never even had the chance to draw his gun. The boy who had been stalking him was silent, but attacked with the fury of a wild animal. He swung his gun like a club, smashing Nick in the back of the head so hard he nearly lost consciousness. Falling face-first into the snow, the pyromaniac howled in pain as he was repeatedly kicked and bludgeoned with the rifle. It felt as if it were going to go on forever, yet as quickly as the wild attack began, it stopped.

Nick looked up through hazy eyes to see his attacker. Though he had half-expected to see some massive, drooling monster of a jock standing over him with a caveman club and a dim smile on his face, the downed boy was not surprised to see who it really was. Being surprised would not get one very far in the Battle Royale now, would it?

"Whose blood is that?" Calvin Spencer, a.k.a. Boy # 11, asked as he chambered a round in his scoped rifle. The boy was hardly physically imposing. Hell, he had glasses and braces, he should have been easy to take in a fight. But he had found surprise. He had found surprise, and he had been able to take Nick down when he was distracted. He got the drop, and he had Nick at the disadvantage. _Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Must remedy this somehow._

"What?" Nick asked incredulously. Calvin smashed the rifle into his face once more, and Nick could taste blood. _He doesn't want me dead, just wants me to hurt. What about blood?_

"I asked you, whose blood is that?" Calvin said angrily, pointing to the blood that had spattered all over Nick's jacket. Had he been more of a blubbering fool it would have been all too easy to say that he had fought and murdered the other Nick in the worst way possible, but he could not. Calvin's violent insistence in knowing whose blood it was... that meant something, didn't it? _Oh, that's right, it was his lady friend who got killed early in the morning wasn't it? He's trying to avenge her. How swe-_

The thundering explosion across the street seemed to tear the world apart around the two boys, deafening both as debris and fire went every which way. The heat blast was enough to send the still-standing Calvin flying through the air and onto the porch of a house fifty feet away, the overhang to which gave way and collapsed on top of him under the stress. As the din began to die down (though the burn did not), Nick got incredulously to his feet and looked at what he had done. All of the houses he had opened the gas lines on were burning, and more than a few that he had not seemed to be catching. Nearly every window on the block had been taken out, and it seemed that every standing mailbox had been knocked over in the process. Nick didn't know what had happened to the boy who had been attacking him, nor did he really care all that much.

It was burning.

It was _all_ burning.

And it was beautiful.

* * *

The explosion rattled the church, gaining a lot of confused gasps and questions as people began running to the windows to see what had happened. Brenda looked to everyone else with the greatest confusion, pissed off that her speech had been intercepted by something else. _Great, you get the perfect moment to take Isaac Freemantle down a few pegs, and the this happens._

Looking to the windows on the east side of the church, Hugo barely had the chance to feel the main doors behind him swing open as they had been kicked. Looking back as the sudden gust of icy wind roused his senses, he caught sight of perhaps the scariest thing he had ever seen. It was a monster of a man, clad in bloody overalls and a plaid shirt, a potato sack covering his head with holes cut for the eyes. His torso seemed to be on fire for some strange reason, but he didn't seem to mind it very much. Considering that the beast was most clearly the devil, there was little doubt in Hugo's mind as to why it was on fire. Whirling around as quickly as he could, the boy tried to swing his Tommy Gun into a position capable of firing into the creature's gut. But the beast was faster, it's massive arms swinging a hideous double-bladed woodsman's ax with terrifying speed. Hugo didn't even get the chance to fire off a single shot before the ax struck home in his chest with a sickening THOCK, blood spewing out in a river as the weapon cleaved through his ribcage and into his heart. The massive boy looked pitifully to the monster for some strange sense of mercy. Instead the beast ripped the weapon of his blade free and kicked Hugo to the floor in a bloody mess.

Turning around when she felt the gust of cold at her back, Diana Halsey, a.k.a. Girl # 13, saw the bloody mess and screamed at the top of her lungs.

Grendel had finally arrived at the church.

Almost everyone turned in unison to see the church's newest and most unwelcome guest, but only a few had it in them to pull their guns on the invader. The fact that someone would dare make an assault on a building with so many armed people inside seemed positively shocking, leaving few with any semblance of sanity to actually do something about it in the immediacy. It was that level of shock that Grendel had been hoping for.

Reaching to its tool belt, the beast pulled free the four Molotov cocktails that it had set burning just moments before (two in each hand) and hurled them throughout the church. Several of the bombs landed among the pews, exploding and filling the aisles with flame as people scattered and ran about with fear. The fourth exploded right next to Shaun Archer, a.k.a. Boy # 12, and Amos Epstein, a.k.a. Boy # 7, coating the boys with burning gasoline as they screamed and tried to ditch their burning clothing. Reflexively Shaun began firing his submachine gun blindly at the exit, causing many to duck for fear of getting shot.

Isaac simply stood behind the podium, wanting to shout for everyone to calm down and deal with the invader with their superior firepower so they could get back to the task at hand, but he knew that they were beyond that point. The tower had fallen, there was no way that they were going to be able to recover from this. Though his revolution was being picked apart a piece at a time before his eyes, there was no way he was going to give into the fear. _If there be one more moment of rebellion in this game, let it be my defiance before this monster!_

Though Shaun's shots were going wild, the creature knew that it had to update its weaponry and quick if it wanted to continue its slaughter. It ducked to the ground quickly, pulled the Tommy Gun from Hugo's still twitching corpse, and opened up on the crowded room. People ducked all over as the weapon's heavy bullets began blasting apart pew after pew, smoke and splinters of wood flying every which way. The creature paused for less than a second, watching with some sense of curiosity as Isaac stood stolidly in defiance. Behind its mask, the creature smiled its lipless smile. _He oughta be shouting 'You shall not pass!' if he keeps this up_, the creature thought. Turning its weapon on the leader of this aborted rebellion, Grendel pulled the trigger for a short burst. Most of the shots hit the podium or went wide around the pulpit, but not all. A simple line of three red holes appeared in Isaac's chest, knocking him to the floor as another scream erupted in the room.

Screaming like a banshee, Christina rushed toward the beast with her aluminum baseball bat held high. Her powerful muscles flexing, she swung the weapon forward with all her might and hit the creature in the top of its head with a mighty CLANG! It knocked the creature off balance, and she was sure that it would be on the floor in a moments time. With the kind of power she had, there was no way it could be anything but a killing blow. Hell, the hit nearly bent the bat in half, it would have to be dead!

But still it stood. Sure, it stumbled, it even dropped the Tommy Gun in whatever daze she had put it in, but it was not dead. Not by a long shot. Reaching to the floor where it had dropped its ax, the creature spun around simply, almost gracefully. In one quick arc, it opened her stomach and sent its steaming contents onto the floor. With another quick, vertical strike, it broke open her sternum. Using the girl's body as a human shield to prevent the few people who had started taking pop-shots at it from hitting their targets, the creature calmly ripped open the struggling girls ribcage. Her heart was still beating (_good_), though the beast was fairly certain that she couldn't feel it very much when he ripped it out. No, she couldn't feel it, but when he forced the barely pumping organ in front of her eyes there was no doubt that she had seen it just before dying.

More and more people who had guns began taking pop shots at the creature, while some of the more bold actually made a run for the back door. With the creature still occupied over Christina's corpse, Jordan Miike, a.k.a. Boy # 16, and Hera Morgan, a.k.a. Girl # 20, were able to make their escape.

Julie Hewitt, a.k.a. Girl # 19, Gillian Stavros, a.k.a. Girl # 10, and Ruben had set to putting out the fire that had engulfed Shaun and Amos. The two boys were unhurt after stripping off the most outer layers of their clothes, but hearing a gunshot up close Shaun looked around in fear. No, it wasn't a gunshot. It was a bullet in his burning backpack having been set off. There were several more clips for the submachine gun he had been given by Gillian within the bag, and at this range...

"Oh shit!" he cried out, grabbing for the bag and throwing it down the main aisle, "EVERYBODY GET DOWN!"

Although few listened to his command as Grendel had retaken his Tommy Gun and began firing on the church group once more, those who were in the vicinity of the bag when it exploded and did so got out pretty much unscathed. Carlos Bautista, a.k.a. Boy # 6, was not one of those. Too focused on firing at the monster with his shotgun, he only knew about the burning bag when it blew up and a flaming round buried itself deep in the muscle of his leg. Although he was in immense pain, he was one of the lucky ones. Having stood by her pew ever since the fight began in a mix of shock and undignified rage, Brenda didn't move when the bag fell in the aisle. She did move when the bag erupted in a massive explosion, sending dozens of searing bullets into her torso and head. For a moment she was alight and nearly airborne, only to land like a sack of potatoes on top of the pew in front of her. Although she hadn't taken any of the rest of her class with her, she had fulfilled her death wish.

Chaos reigned.

* * *

There was a massive explosion on one side of the town, and gunfire on the other. At both there would be people, plenty of opportunities to play the game. Plenty of opportunities to _win._

Chambering a round in her pistol, Phoebe Valverde, a.k.a. Girl # 11, ran toward the source of the gunfire with high hopes. _The game is mine._

* * *

It was like something out of The Terminator. The creature with the ax and the Tommy Gun held its position in the doorway, firing off long volleys of heavy bullets and dodging whatever pitiful attempts to fight back rather effectively. More than once Randal Hudson, a.k.a. Boy # 19, could have sworn that someone had made a direct hit into the thing's body. Either the thing had body armor, or was something supernatural. Neither would have surprised Randal. Not after what it so quickly and viciously did to Christina. The room was burning. People were screaming. Everything seemed to be exploding at once. Guns were going off all around him. But there was only one thing that truly held Randal's attention. _He's in the door. There's no way out._

Of course if you were fast and had brass balls you could make it out that way, but almost no one seemed to be in a state of mind enough to do that. They were afraid. They were in shock. They were pinned down by a madman. It would be a slaughterhouse unless they could find a way out.

Randal quickly surveyed the room and found himself dismayed. The side doors were a no-go, they'd barricaded those in the early hours to prevent any unwanted entry. Instead they had just been good for keeping them stuck in. The rear exit in the back room was also blocked out, leaving the only option the main doors... _No. There's another. Get the windows? But they're leaded glass, heavy stuff. Take a lot to get-_

Heavy machine gun bullets tore through one of the pews next to him, sending Aziz and Frank Luczak, a.k.a. Boy # 14, ducking beside him. They had their guns drawn, and it appeared that they had been taking part in the pitiful offensive to fight off the monster. Aziz was nursing what appeared to be a pretty bad gunshot wound to his right bicep, while Frank tried to reload his heavy revolver with little expertise. _No messing around now. Take the chance while you got it._

"We gotta get out of here!" Randal shouted over the din of the gunfire.

"How the hell do you recommend we do that?" Aziz shouted back.

"We grab this," he motioned toward the heavy pew in front of them, "and we take out the window!"

"Think that'll work?" Aziz responded.

"It's better than the alternative!" Frank shouted as he shoved his heavy revolver down the front of his pants, "Come on!"

The three boys ducked down behind the pew, wrapping their arms around it and lifting with all their might. The pews were made of good old heavy wood. They had been a pain to carry around and make into barricades when there were plenty of them trying to do it. But with the three of them (one of whom was injured) trying in the midst of the battle... it seemed damn near Herculean.

Pushing, straining with every muscle the three boys could muster, they lifted the heavy pew into their arms. Aziz cried out in pain from his wounded arm, but he would not allow it to fall. They were going to be heroes. Running to the nearest window, the three boys sent the pew flying right on through. The heavy leaded glass broke apart and shattered into a million multi-colored pieces, opening up the entire window to the outside world. There wasn't much certainty for survival in the outside world (especially since the whole grouping-up thing seemed to be unlikely to happen again), but it sure as hell seemed like a better idea than staying inside with the monster with the machine gun. So, while there were some who tried to maintain a gunfight with the monster, Randal, Frank and Aziz used their guns to provide cover for whoever would like to escape through the window. There was a mad rush as most of those who had little in the way of weapons dove for the windows. Frank disappeared somewhere in the middle of the mess, and after a while even Randal couldn't stand to stay any longer. It took some help from Aziz, Basim and Amanda for him to make his way through the window, but they were able to heft him out. The fighting had died down considerably, when the monster set about reloading his Tommy Gun there was a rush of people (armed and unarmed) for the window and the main doors. While it was more than capable of taking them out, it set off single-mindedly to the main pulpit. It seemed to have an odd purpose, taking note of no one unless they crossed its path directly.

As Basim followed Amanda through the window, he looked back at Aziz. His friend looked bad; the arm wound ran a trail of red blood down the left side of the body. And yet somehow, for some damn reason, there was a smile on his face.

"Let's get the hell out of here!" Basim yelled, looking over his shoulder grimly as Amanda tugged on his sleeve.

"Gotta make sure everyone gets out!" Aziz yelled back, "Go on, I'll catch up to ya man!"

Swinging his good arm, Aziz patted Basim on the shoulder hard. Basim looked back with some hesitation, but turned his back and followed Amanda into the icy gloom of Grover's Mill. Aziz looked back into the church with a grim sense of satisfaction. There were only a few die-hard fighters left aside from himself. Carlos and Conrad were taking pop-shots at the invading monster with their shotguns as it walked toward the pulpit. In the chaos of the fire and the destruction of the room, their shots went wide and missed the creature by a mile. Thusly, it paid them no mind. Hesitantly, the boys made their way to the main doors.

_It's all about you now. It's your turn to be the hero. It's always about Rub, it's always about Basim, but now, now you got the chance for the glory. You're the guy who stuck around. You're the guy who's got the gun. You're the guy who's going to save the goddamn day. Ain't it cool?_

Lifting his Glock 18C high, Aziz fired off six shots directly into the monster's center mass. The beast staggered, but did not fall. The grim smile that had begun to cross Aziz's face disappeared quickly. The monster spun his way.

"Oh shit."

Grendel fired a quick burst at Aziz, three bullets of which actually hit him. The first nearly blew off his wounded left hand, the second a piece of his midsection the size of a soda can, and the last hit him square in the heart in a bloody explosion that killed the boy instantly. His body fell against the wall, sliding down slowly in a massive bloody smear.

That act was more than enough to convince the last fighters in the church that the fight was not one they needed to take a part in any longer, forcing them to make their exit. And for a short while, the church was silent.

* * *

Isaac Freemantle was dying. Everything felt as if it were on fire, and blood was flowing freely from his mouth. He coughed miserably, watching with only idle interest as the drops of blood spattered back on his wire-rimmed glasses. _Yeah, this is definitely an end, isn't it? They're shooting it out. Smoke. Helluva fight. Probably looks great on TV, doesn't it? Fuck, I've failed. Didn't get to pull off the big upset, no rescue, no escape. No revolution. Son of a bitch._

Stretching his limbs, Isaac could only feel agony. He was bleeding badly, probably had a punctured lung, likely even worse than that. But he was not going to die lying down. After all he had done, all he had tried to do, all those who had tried to fight before and had died needlessly... he was going to die on his feet. _This one's for you Marley._

Forcing, straining every muscle until they screamed at him, the boy pulled himself up the podium. Blood gushed down the front of his white jacket, but oddly enough he didn't care. It would all be over soon enough anyway, and he was going to stand in the face of it. Pulling himself onto the podium, using it for all the balance he could manage, Isaac stood on increasingly unsteady legs.

"All over soon," he muttered to himself, wiping the blood from his lips with the back of his hand as he watched Aziz being executed. The last of the fighters from the church evacuated, and for the briefest of moments he locked eyes with the monster who had brought such carnage on their group of one-time revolutionaries. Upon seeing the eyes, a grim smile crossed the boy's face.

"I know you," Isaac said softly. The words had no impact on the beast as it wandered through the flames, swinging the Tommy Gun over its shoulder and pulling free his bow. It loaded an arrow methodically, and ready to meet his fate Isaac forced himself to stand beside the podium.

"Let's do this," he said as blood dribbled down his chin in a torrent. Without missing a beat, the creature let the arrow go. Isaac had expected, even hoped for, instant death. Instead he was shocked almost to the point of screaming when the arrow buried itself in his gut. The creature meant not to kill him... it just wanted to cause pain. _All right, if you wanna play it like that..._ Reaching onto the podium, Isaac ripped the knuckle duster free. If the creature wanted to make him suffer, he was going to have to earn it.

"COME ON!" Isaac shouted as he waved his pitiful weapon around, "COME ON, YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT YOU PUSSY!"

The monster loaded up another arrow and fired without mercy, lodging the projectile in Isaac's groin. The boy very nearly howled out in pain, but despite the blinding pain he would not fall. He had been ready to accept death, but if the monster wanted more... then he wasn't going to give it the satisfaction.

And then the creature did something that surprised even Isaac.

"I know this hurts Isaac," the beast behind the ragged potato sack said in a hideous, gravelly voice, "and I can end you fast. I just want the tracker. Give n-e the tracker, and I will kill you. You'll die a good hunt, not like the rest, not like dogs."

Isaac tried for a laugh of defiance, but with the world going blurry it didn't come out all that well.

"You want the tracker? You want this?" Isaac asked as he pulled the tracker from his pocket with his free hand. Of course the monster would know that he had the tracking device. The monster was a plant, the monster knew all, and with the help of a tracking device it would be unstoppable. It would be able to kill everyone, and they wouldn't even be able to see it coming.

"You want it?" Isaac asked, "Catch!"

With all the might he could manage, Isaac threw the tracking device to the floor of the church in front of the beast. The ploy had the desired effect: it dove for the device. The throw was faster, and for a fraction of a second Isaac held the satisfaction that he had destroyed the tracking device before the beast could get its hand on it. _It wants me as a good kill... don't let it have it. See you soon Marley._

Flipping the blade of the knuckle duster vertically, Isaac put it in his mouth. The cold, dull steel stung as he forced it into the roof of his mouth, but thankfully the pain would not last very long. Watching as the monster turned its furious attention back to him, Isaac smiled as he dove toward the podium. Placing all of his body's weight into the dive, Isaac was killed instantly when the weapon's handle hit the podium and drove its blade directly into his brain. He was not allowed his revolution, but he still died happy knowing that he'd probably saved some lives in his final act.

Surveying the carnage, and looking to both his robbed kill and prize, Grendel let loose a feral roar that echoed across the town of Grover's Mill. Although he had saved some lives, unfortunately in his death Isaac had made the creature mad.

And so the game began anew.


	29. Hour 15, Pt 2: 37 Contestants Remaining

**

* * *

Hour 15, Part 2**

**37 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

The battle was deafening, disorienting. Basim Sharafi, a.k.a. Boy # 13, barely had any idea of how it started, but he knew that it was bad. Real bad. People were running around, trying to find cover as the massive man in the potato-sack mask mowed a path of destruction through the church. There was fire. Screaming. People were dying. He only had time to act on instinct, but at least that was an easy path to follow. Amanda Marquette, a.k.a. Girl # 18, sat right next to him, yet despite her state of shock she did not scream when the battle began. She ducked down with the rest of them, only taking glances every so often in between volleys of gunfire. He wanted to protect her, wanted to shield her with his own body. Instead he had to fight to keep her from joining in the battle. Upon seeing their attacker she had gained a manic, almost mad look in her eyes. She'd pulled out her gun (_well, one of them, she does have two, right?_) and taken a few shots at the monster like the rest of them had. If he had been better armed, he would have joined her in kind. Instead he was forced to watch as his friends, people he'd known for as long as he could remember, were cut down by the monster's bullets all around him. Aziz took one in the arm, a large gout of blood exploding from the wound in his left bicep. Basim tried to call out for his friend, but could not over the din of the battle. _We're all going to die in here..._

* * *

The two youths ran across the snow still reeling from the horrors that they had just been forced to witness. Amanda was on guard, holding her pistol defensively and ready to jump at anything that moved. Basim was more worried about everyone else. _How many made it out? Who got it in there, what the hell happened? How many of us are left? What about Isaac? Can we... can we still escape? Still pull this off?_

"Where the hell are we going?" Amanda asked Basim as they continued to run..

"Away from here, hide out, wait for that guy to move on," Basim shot back. It seemed the only thing to do under the circumstances. _It's all that makes sense. Amanda's got a gun, you've got a big curved knife. Last check that guy's got a machine gun, an ax, firebombs, and who knows what else._

"But everyone else, we they're still in there!" Amanda protested. She tried to dig her feet into the ground, but the boy was much stronger and continued to pull her down the snowy street.

"We can't fight that... that thing, Amanda," Basim said, "not if we want to survive this."

"But he killed Kendal!" she protested, shaking herself from his grip and pointing her gun back at the church, "That monster killed Kendal, and if he's still in there we might be able to catch him off guard! I'm a pretty damn good shot, I can get him in the back of the head, and then we can try and find a place to hide!"

Basim found himself torn. He cared greatly for Amanda, but this... this was almost too typical of her. Once she got something in her head, it was rather difficult to try and talk her out of it. _But maybe she's right. Maybe you can catch that monster distracted and end this. But wasn't he getting shot already? You saw him take direct hits, some that even looked like he took them to the head! How the hell does someone take shots to the head and live?_

"No. Not just the two of us, not with just one gun," Basim said adamantly.

A look of dawning comprehension passed Amanda's face, and she shot Basim a quick and almost evilly excited grin, "But I've got two guns."

"What?" Basim asked.

Amanda tore open her bag enthusiastically, pulling free the Desert Eagle she had taken from Kendal's bag before abandoning her to die. The gun felt massive and unwieldy in her hands, but she knew well enough that it was a very good one. Basim looked uncertainly to the weapon. It was fairly obvious that she wanted to give it to him so they could try and find the monster and fight it, and that doing so would almost certainly mean certain death. But what if they could pull it off? What if they actually could fight that thing, somehow get the upper hand and make a difference? _No. It's impossible. There's no way in hell you can do it. Hell, thirty people, most of them with guns of some sorts, couldn't fight it off. It's suicide!_

And yet it was easy to tell that nothing he could do could dissuade Amanda from trying to fight. She would go back, alone if she had to, and she would try to kill the monster. _Son of a bitch._

Reluctantly, the boy grabbed the gun from her hand, "Then let's go."

* * *

It was chaos, that much was plain to the girl as she surveyed the area around the church. People seemed to be running in every direction, none of them close enough to want to try and take a shot at. She could see Amos Epstein, a.k.a. Boy # 7, dressed in only his street clothes and running through the streets without any real sense of direction. For a while it looked like he was trying to search for someone, but he ultimately just wound up wandering off down some side street and disappearing from sight. _You can't expect them to come to you, if you're going to do this, you're going to have to play this hardcore. Be proactive, attack them, don't wait for them to come falling into your lap-_

It was uncanny. The girl ran right into her path, distracted, not even minding the gun that she held at about waist height. She was distracted, looked upset, and almost certainly would be an easy fight. But she was coming too fast. Getting off a good shot (especially without knowing what the gun kicked like) would be difficult. _Have to play this one by ear then._

And so, Sophia Apollinar, a.k.a. Girl # 6, ran into Phoebe Valverde, a.k.a. Girl # 11. Phoebe had prepared for the running girl, setting off charging toward her from the back alley with a scream and knocking her to the ground. The attack came off as a total surprise, and Sophia went down without a sound. Phoebe set about pummeling the girl, pistol-whipping her about the head. For her part, Sophia responded well as she raised her arms in self-defense. None of the strikes managed to get her in the head, but there was no way that she was going to be able to respond quickly. _Well, there's always the old standby._

Although the attack wasn't the best in the world under the circumstances, Sophia didn't figure that she had any other options. Gathering up all of her strength, she kneed Phoebe in the crotch. Hard. Although it didn't have the same impact as attacking a boy in the same area, it did have a pretty good kick to it. The girl rolled off of Sophia howling, and both girls quickly scrambled for their guns.

Phoebe was on her feet faster, pointing her gun at the downed girl. She looked at Sophia, staring at that terrible scar on her upper lip. Staring at her curly hair, that smattering of acne across her cheeks and forehead. _Sickening._

"You are one ugly bitch," Phoebe said spitefully.

And yet, despite the fact that she was on the ground and had a gun pointed at her chest, Sophia was laughing.

"I may be, but you're one stupid bitch," Sophia said as she whipped her arm around. She didn't know if she had the time to do it, she didn't know if she could pull it off, but it seemed that Phoebe wasn't expecting any form of retaliation. Sophia was able to swing her arm around, snub-nosed revolver in hand, and fire off two shots directly into Phoebe's chest. The shock flung the girl off her feet and into the snow with a scream.

Cursing and stumbling to her feet, Sophia set off into the snow.

Phoebe was soon to follow. _They call it a bulletproof vest, it's supposed to stop bullets. You'd think that'd be enough, but no, they really should make it so you don't feel the bullets either. God damn those hurt._

* * *

"Did you hear those?" Amanda asked as she picked up speed.

"I think they were right up ahead," Basim responded. With guns drawn, the two contestants ran back towards the church. As before, Basim was worried about what they would find, yet willing to go if just to protect Amanda. _We have to turn back. This is a bad idea. This is a very bad idea. This is so damn-_

When Sophia ran across their path, it took everything Basim had within him not to shoot her.

"Jesus Christ, hold the fuck up!" Sophia shouted as she held her hands in the air. Amanda seemed less likely to slow down, but did so when Basim stopped.

"You all right there Sophie?" Basim asked.

"About as good as I can be under the circumstances," she replied.

"Have you seen anyone else? Isaac, Rub, Aziz?" Basim asked. He wasn't too hopeful for the answer, but it was worth a shot. Getting everyone who had survived back together... that was the only way anything could be done.

"They're all over the place," Sophia responded, "trying to get the hell out of there. What the hell were you doing running back this way?"

"Gonna try to kill that son of a bitch, that's what we're gonna do," Amanda responded. The look of shock that crossed Sophia's face took even Basim by surprise.

"Are you fucking high?" Sophia asked.

"I don't need to explain myself to you," Amanda replied, "we just gotta-"

The gunshots that rang across the street caught the trio off guard. Whoever was shooting wasn't the most accurate in the world, but they seemed to know what they were doing at the very least. Instinctively the three began shooting back, catching only the briefest of glances as Phoebe ducked into an alley between buildings.

"Who the hell was that?" Basim asked.

"I shot her!" Sophia responded as she began firing back in the direction of Phoebe.

"Not well enough!" Amanda responded as she took three more shots at Phoebe. The girl from the alley charged forward, hiding behind a parked car and sneaking out for a quick couple shots. Sophia tried to shoot back, but found only the clicking of an empty gun.

"I'm out!" she called.

"Me too!" Amanda replied as she reached to her pocket for a refill. Taking a chance, Phoebe rushed the armed trio as the two girls tried to reload. She fired shots wildly, watching as they blew small holes in the shop they stood against. Raising the massive pistol in his hands, Basim attempted to shoot back. The gun simply would not fire. It did not click empty, it just refused to fire.

"Run!" he called, forcing the two girls in front of him as they ran in the opposite direction of their pursuing attacker. Dodging down the nearest side street they could find, the trio tried to outrun their pursuer. Showing considerable grace and speed, Phoebe was able to keep up and keep the trio in her sights. Her gun clicked empty after another volley of three shots, but with quick hands she was able to reload the weapon and continue her pursuit. Basim looked back to the girl and could only marvel. _She can't hit any of us and yet she can reload while running. How the hell does that work?_

But her reloading slowed her down slightly, and that was enough. _Just hurry, turn down the next street and duck into a building, we can lose her. We can do this, just keep moving, keep them moving..._

When she stumbled, Basim pushed the two girls before him hard around the corner. _Just a little bit faster, a little further, give me a shop up ahead, a movie theater, a gas station, anything, anything that'll let us hide and get the hell out of this..._

And when he saw the two people standing before them in the street, Basim felt like everything had ended. The boy was clearly Iago Cilek, a.k.a. Boy # 21, holding a military rifle with expert posture. Considering the sword held across his back and the blood on his white jacket, it was clear that he had already made at least one kill. The other person he could not recognize, but they were not dressed like any of the rest. Their clothing was less bulky, more functional (if not nearly as warm). A series of belts criss-crossed their chest filled with various bullets and extra clips. Their face was covered with a thick red scarf, sunglasses, and the black hood of their parka. Considering the size, it was likely a girl. _Two monsters in this game, two monsters unleashed to kill us all. They called the boy Grendel. They called the girl..._

"Scylla," the boy muttered. The girl held a sawed-off shotgun in one hand and a semi-automatic pistol in the other. Between the two killers in the street before him and the girl trying to be a killer behind him, Basim didn't know what to do. Sophia seemed to be frozen in her path, and Amanda quickly tried to reload her pistol. It was coming down to a gunfight on all ends, and it was going to be bad.

And then came something completely unexpected.

"Get down!" Scylla said authoritatively. At first the trio of runners did not seem to know what to do. They looked to one another strangely as if trying to validate what the killer before them had said.

"I said get down!" Scylla said as she rushed towards the group. With a surprisingly delicate jump, the creature in the black parka drop-kicked Basim. Amanda hollered out, readying her pistol as she prepared to kill Scylla. She was cut off by the heavy boom of a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun going off with both barrels. Amanda and Sophia were able to see for the briefest of moments the red mist that used to be Phoebe's head fill the air, her body falling to the ground in a bloody heap. Completely methodical, Scylla wandered over to the body on the ground. She stripped Phoebe of her pistol, ammunition and bulletproof vest. Walking back to the stunned trio and Iago, Scylla tossed the bulletproof vest on the ground.

"Bulletproof vest. You never know how many of these are circulating in the game. If you ever come up to someone you mean to kill in this game, you go for the legs, the arm or the head. If you shoot someone and they stay down, you go up to them and make sure they're dead. I don't care if it takes another bullet, but you make sure their head ain't much more than what I've made this bitch's into," Scylla said as she forced Phoebe's pistol down the front of her pants.

"Now," Scylla continued authoritatively as she helped Basim to his feet, "we've just had a pretty good shooting match here. You're lucky we were in the neighborhood to save your pretty as an acne cream commercial asses, but there's some dangerous fucking people out here who're going to want to be finding who was shooting things off out here."

"Who the hell are you?" Amanda asked incredulously.

The figure with the red scarf around the mouth cocked their head, but Basim could've sworn that they were smiling at him.

"Just come with me if you want to live," Scylla said with great strength.

Sophia, Amanda and Basim looked confused to one another for a moment. Basim even took a glance Iago's way, but it didn't look like he had any answers either. Scylla simply shook her head disappointed. Pulling the hood of her parka down, the girl set free an almost waist-length black ponytail. Pulling the scarf down from her mouth, she revealed light-brown and still deeply tanned skin surrounding a surprisingly jovial smile. Finally she removed the sunglasses, revealing one brown eye that looked weary yet bright, and an eye patch where her other eye should be.

Amanda and Basim came to the realization of who was standing before them slowly, but Sophia was quicker.

She spoke out of fear and a slightly awed sense of being star struck, "Holy shit."

"You people have no clue where 'Come with me if you want to live' comes from, do you?" Ashley Vasquez, a.k.a. Scylla, a.k.a. Girl # 26, asked with exasperation, "Fucking kids. Paul would've found it funny."


	30. Hour 16: 36 Contestants Remaining

**

* * *

Hour 16**

**36 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

They were standing in front of perhaps the biggest celebrity in America, and with the exception of Iago Cilek, a.k.a. Boy # 21, they were all stunned into silence. With all that had happened, all that had gone so horribly wrong, to run into her... it just seemed to add to the surreal nature of the past couple hours.

"So who was stupid enough to let Grendel get his hands on a machine gun?" Ashley Vasquez, a.k.a. Girl # 26, asked incredulously. Although there was little anger in her voice, it was obvious that she was still quite annoyed.

"He just stormed in on us," Basim Sharafi, a.k.a. Boy # 13, responded, "there wasn't a lot we could do when he attacked."

"But he killed people in there?" Ashley asked again purposefully.

"Of course he did," Amanda Marquette, a.k.a. Girl # 18, replied, "he's killed a lot of people..."

"Then we might still be able to catch him," Ashley said as she tore off in the direction of the church. Iago followed quickly behind with barely a single look back, while the other three stood rather bewildered.

"Wait, try to catch him? He just damn near slaughtered us, we gotta get the hell out of here before he finds us!" Sophia Apollinar, a.k.a. Girl # 6, said with a hint of anger in her voice. Ashley quickly turned around and stopped.

"Yeah, but I'm guessing he got you guys by surprise. If he killed anyone in that church then he's probably still making them into trophies. With any luck he's taking his time with them, and then the five of us will be able to get the drop on him. Just remember, legs, arms, keep shooting until none of them work. Body or headshots with him are unreliable, just take out the extremities so me or Iago can cut his head off," Ashley said quickly as she aimed her shotgun.

"OK, time out," Amanda interjected, "this guy's a monster, he's making people into trophies and a shot to the head won't reliably kill him? Who the fuck is this guy?"

Ashley looked even more irritated as time rolled on and looked all but ready to just keep going despite Amanda. However, since it looked very much like Amanda would shoot her if she didn't get the answers she wanted, Ashley continued to humor them anyway, "Any of you guys watch BR4? West Virginia?"

Although none of them could say that they had actually watched that game, a sense of dawning comprehension crossed their faces. If Ashley was in the game under a codename, then that meant the other person under a codename could be a winner too...

"'cause if you did you'd know the guy. Cletus Carrington Atlas, one ugly name for one ugly son of a bitch, winner of the Fourth Annual United States Battle Royale and our worst nightmare in this game somehow made even worse by the fact that all you jackasses allowed him to get his hands on a machine gun. Damn near seven feet tall, three hundred pounds of pure eighties horror movie nightmare in a mask. Like me, he's got a bulletproof vest," Ashley said as she pulled open her jacket to show off the vest.

"Him and me, we're supposed to be the stars here you see? They didn't figure any of you would be worth fighting really, so they hired us folks they thought would be the big guns to take you on and keep you moving. Can't have your stars getting killed easy, so we get the body armor. His head's a bit of a different problem. Any of you ever seen Cletus on TV or anywhere since his game?"

Again silence, and again Ashley kept rattling information off the top of her head, "Of course not, because he's ugly as fuck after what happened to him in the first game. Took a shotgun blast to the head at close range in the game's final minutes, and for some damn reason he still kept kicking. Barely, but they did. Most of his face was torn away, including his lips. Can't say B, M or P properly. Try getting him to say bitmap sometime if you really want a laugh or two. But no, the real kicker is what happened to his skull. Most of the top was shattered to hell in the blast, and so they replaced it. Replaced it with goddamn solid steel, kind of makes him an ultra zombie. Paul would appreciate. Not entirely bulletproof, not by a long shot, but pretty fucking high odds of a ricochet if you get anything on him except for a head-on hit."

Once again the girl started to tear off toward the church, and once again the three she had rescued looked toward her with great skepticism. With great frustration Ashley turned around and addressed the trio.

"Look, if you want to make it out of this place alive we're going to have to kill that son of a bitch sooner rather than later. He's capable of a lot of damage, and whatever any of you have seen is just the tip of the iceberg. Don't let the mutant-retard-hillbilly-freak look of the guy take you off your guard. He's dangerous, and damn smart. If you stick with me right now I'll get you to survive the day. If you stick with me to the end, well, things might turn out well for all of us." Shotgun and pistol high, the girl began to make her way toward the church. As it was clear that she no longer wished to wait and talk the matter through, Sophia took off after her. Basim and Amanda were left dumbfounded with Iago who had remained silent throughout the entire exchange. The boy had a look of weary confidence on his face, but seemed to have at least the vaguest idea of what was going on.

"Is she all right?" Amanda asked.

"About as all right as anyone's going to get out here," Iago said simply as he began to follow Ashley and Sophia.

"What the hell is her problem?" Basim asked, "She knows how damn dangerous that asshole is and she still wants to try hunting him down?"

"She's a woman who plans ahead," Iago said cryptically as he began to pick up speed. Amanda and Basim were soon to follow.

"So why are you with her? Are you working for the game now too?" Amanda asked. At this remark, Iago could only laugh.

"Hardly."

"Then why?"

"There was a time this morning when she coulda let me die," Iago said, "but she didn't. She saved my life."

"How noble," Basim commented with slight sarcasm.

"Yeah, well I'd rather stick by her than a guy who couldn't figure out how to take the safety off his pistol," Iago said slyly as he nodded toward Basim's gun, "and then of course there's the fact that she knows how to escape the game."

* * *

Mallory Bell, a.k.a. Girl # 1, ran through the snow nearly in a state of shock. With wild, frightened eyes and the kukri knife held haphazardly in both hands, she was almost ready to kill the first person she'd met out of pure fear. The blood... there had been so much blood. In the church, the snow surrounding it, in great trails and footprints that seemed to paint the ground as they went. Whether the blood on the ice came from people who had been injured or just those hit with the blood of others, she did not know. Not a whole lot made sense... _The monster. The monster's still out there, isn't he? No, he's still back there. You got out fast, he's still taking his time with them in there isn't he? They say there were monsters put into the game, and he was one of them, wasn't he? He... he killed them. He killed them all, didn't he? How many made it, how many didn't? What's left of them? Who got hu-_

"Hey Mallory, over here!" a masculine voice called from a nearby business. Spinning around violently with the blade held high, a look of relief crossed the frightened girl's face. Standing in the doorway to the local antique shop was Shaun Archer, a.k.a. Boy # 12. He didn't look to be in very good condition, no cold-weather clothes beyond a plaid flannel shirt that was one size too small on his muscular frame. The left side of his neck and the lower portion of his face was a gruesome red-black mix of burns, but his face looked surprisingly calm and relieved.

"Come on in here, it's warm and pretty safe," he said quickly. The girl eyed him nervously, the submachine gun in his hands looking about as deadly as anything the monster could have thrown at them. Noticing her gaze, the boy slung the weapon over his shoulder.

"Come on, we need help, Carlos is hurt bad!" he pleaded with open hands. _Trust, can you trust him? Do you have any reason to trust him? We've nothing to bond us, not anymore, we aren't working to a common goal. Isaac was shot, we're all working on our own now, aren't we? But he's a good guy, he's got a gun, he could've shot me and he didn't._

Looking nervously up and down the street, Mallory was relieved to see that there were no watching eyes that could possibly follow her inside. Practically sprinting, the girl felt great relief over the blast of artificial warmth that filled the room. She could hear moaning, struggling, urgent voices.

"Have you seen Amos?" Shaun asked fearfully. To that, Mallory could only shake her head slowly. The boy looked as if he were going to curse, but thought better of it.

"They're in back," Shaun said quickly, turning his gaze back to the shop's front glass door. _He's keeping the lookout for those in back, or for Amos? Let's hope he finds him..._

Following the voices into the darkened store, Mallory was treated to a horrific sight. Carlos Bautista, a.k.a. Boy # 6, was lying down on the floor and moaning in agony. There was blood all over the place. Gillian Stavros, a.k.a. Girl # 10, was working on the boy's horrific leg injury. Her once brilliant white snow suit was now bathed in Carlos' blood. Holding a flashlight over the whole gruesome scene was Randal Hudson, a.k.a. Boy # 19.

"Randal, I need more light, get another flashlight!" Gillian pleaded as she worked on Carlos' wound with a pair of tweezers. Probing at the wound even more vigorously, she got a renewed howl of pain from the boy as he thrashed about on the floor.

"Damn it Carlos!" Gillian practically shouted, hardly noticing Mallory's presence, "Stop moving or I won't be able to stop the bleeding!"

"What's going on?" Mallory asked. All heads in the room turned toward her. Carlos looked almost on the verge of death. Randal too had a rather sickly look to his face, but upon seeing the girl a wave of relief did seem to wash over him. Gillian's face was impossible to read, but her intensity didn't seem to falter. Despite the grim scene, Mallory could read a distinct sense of excitement on the other girl's face. She seemed excited, almos tin her element as she operated on the boy's leg.

"How you holding up Mallory?" Gillian asked as she forced some gauze onto the boy's wound in an effort to staunch the flow of blood.

"I'm fine, fine enough," Mallory corrected.

"Good, we need your help," Gillian responded quickly, "and time's wasting so do as I say or Carlos here isn't going to make it."

"What happened?" Mallory asked.

"Randal," Gillian commanded, "give your flashlights to Mallory, I need you to hold Carlos down. Mallory, I need-"

"What happened?" Mallory asked again.

"There's no time!" Gillian responded forcefully.

"Carlos got hit," Randal said, his voice soothing despite the worry and fear in it, "he's bleeding bad. Gill wants to sew him up, but needs to take the bullet out first so he won't die from an infection."

Despite the horrific scene before her, Mallory acted quickly to respond to Gillian's command. Carlos, the handsome, strong star of the school's soccer team, was dying of a gunshot wound on the floor. His strength seemed to have disappeared, his usually confident face filled with pain and fear. Pulling the flashlight from her pack and taking the one that Randal handed over, Mallory directed the beams of light directly onto the wound. It looked bad, the flesh ragged and dark red from the blood still oozing out. For a moment she wondered why they didn't turn on the electric lights in the back of the store to make the operation go better, but upon realizing that it might draw attention from the outside she understood the caution.

"Please, help," Carlos coughed. The boy looked sad and terrified. He wasn't beyond saving, but it was clear that he was reaching that point quickly. The operation would be bad, but it had to be done."

"I'm sorry, but I don't think this is going to feel very good," Randal said mournfully as he knelt on the boy's shoulders, pinning him to the floor. Acting in kind, Gillian straddled his lower legs to keep them pinned down.

"All right, I'm going to make another go at the bullet, and then we're going to sew you up as good as new. Can't promise you you'll be able to hit the field anytime soon, but you won't be dying today if I've got anything to say about it," Gillian said with a forced smile on her face. Taking a bottle of vodka from her pack, she poured some of the clear alcohol onto the large pair of tweezers she held daintily. Quickly, so as not to worry Carlos, she poured more directly into the wound. The boy howled in pain, thrashing his head around on the floor. Mallory didn't want to watch, his pain was too much, too horrible. She wanted him to pass out from the shock, anything to end his pain. But he was strong, and he was fighting the pain. Despite Randal's massive girth, Carlos was putting up one hell of a fight that nearly knocked the larger boy free. Gillian thrust the tweezers into the wound. They looked deadly sharp, but she maneuvered them with skill. Her face contorted slightly, worrying about as she probed the wound for the bullet.

"Almost, got it, just a little more..." Gillian muttered. With a jerk of the wrist, she ripped the bloody chunk of lead free from Carlos' thigh. Holding it high under the beam of light, she smiled.

"Good news Carlos, the bullet's intact. No chance for fragments traveling to your heart, and with the volume of blood coming out I don't think your femoral artery was hit. Just let me sew you up, clean you up, and you're gonna be all right," Gillian said with a triumphant smile. Carlos could only give a weak thumbs up in response before collapsing from exhaustion.

"Do you need the light anymore?" Mallory asked, full of relief and revulsion over what she had just seen.

"Yeah, just set it on the floor," Gillian responded. Mallory set the flashlights on the floor pointed at Carlos and Gillian, then sprinted for the back of the store. _Where's the bathroom? Where the hell is the bathroom? There's gotta be something somewhere-_

Too late. The antique washtub in the corner of the room would do. Bending over, Mallory vomited violently into the tub. The strong revulsion and pain felt as if she were voiding everything she had eaten within the last month. It hurt, it tasted terrible, but the purge felt almost freeing in its own perverse way. A way of ridding the horrors of the past few hours in its own strange way.

"Need someone to hold your hair back?" a kind voice asked from behind her.

Wiping bile from her lips with the back of her hand, Mallory responded, "No thanks Randal, I'm... I'm fine."

She turned around to face him, "How do I look?"

"Surprisingly pretty for someone who just puked their guts out," Randal responded with a slight smile, "I mean, that was really impressive."

Under the circumstances, the girl almost felt like bursting out laughing. Then looking into the boy's earnest eyes and the tears that ran down his cheeks, Mallory began to cry. It was another purge, a necessary purge of the stress, fear and exhilaration that the game had forced upon all of them. She felt like crying out so the whole world could hear, screaming at the top of her lungs about how terrible everything was. Instead she just fell against Randal and wrapped her arms around his large, comforting form. Unused to the situation but doing the best he could, Randal tried to hug her back.

It seemed to do the job.

* * *

Their bodies were hanging from the rafters. They were hanging by their feet from lengths of rope, entrails spilling out from the crude vertical cuts to their chests and stomachs and bathing the floor below in gore. Although most of them seemed to have been already killed before the mutilations, their throats had been slit and faces crudely peeled away. It _was_ like something out of a horror movie. Ashley hadn't been lying.

_Was this what happened to Kendal? Did she, did she suffer as much as these five did? What makes a person capable of doing something like this? How, how could any human being do this to someone else? This is savage, this is like... like an animal._

Grendel hadn't been in the church when they burst in. It seemed that he had left perhaps just moments before, the few fires from the attack that took were just beginning to burn out. The bodies were suspended in the air in a grim fashion, with the numbers three through seven crudely written on the wall in what first Amanda took to be red paint, but she all too quickly realized to be fresh blood.

Basim looked at the bodies intently, searching, checking their faces. Despite the lacking features, he was able to determine some of their identities. Enough to make him storm out of the church with a fearful, sickly look on his face. Amanda moved to comfort him, but Iago put a hand on her shoulder.

"He's gonna be fine," Iago said, "just doin' what a man's gotta do at a time like this, and he's probably not gonna want an audience for it if you know what I mean."

She did know what the boy (_scary sonofabitch though he may be_) meant, but that didn't mean she wanted to listen to him. Basim was a friend (_at one time more_), perhaps the best she had anymore, she would go to comfort him if she damn well felt like it, not when some nutcase with a gun and a sword and a crappy-wannabe-badass buzz cut said she could be.

"Who are these people?" Ashley asked as she looked at a small notebook she produced from one of her jacket pockets.

"Why would you care?" Amanda asked idly.

"I need to know who's dead and who's alive. There are people here with skills that could be useful if we all want to survive here, and I need to know if any of them have been lost," Ashley said almost mechanically. Amanda gaped at the girl, wanting to take a swing at her but thinking the better of it. If there was one person in the room who knew how to kill, it would be Ashley Vasquez.

"Don't you have any soul?" Amanda asked, "Don't you care that these people, our _friends_, have died?"

"Your friends, not mine," Ashley responded without the slightest hint of anger at what Amanda had said, "and you should feel glad for them, at least they're spared the pain and suffering of this game. Cletus here's something of a sadist, if he killed them in a matter of minutes they were pretty damn lucky. Some poor fuckers he's let go for a day or two before finally finishing them off."

That callousness was enough to set Amanda in motion, almost ready to punch Ashley in that one remaining eye of hers. It was only Sophia's intervention that kept that from happening.

"Hugo Diaz, Aziz Haddad, Christina Montressor, Brenda Lennon and... and Isaac Freemantle," Sophia was able to choke out.

"Thank you," Ashley said with a slight frown as she jotted off notes in the book, "damn, Isaac would have been good to have. Ambitious bastard, but he knew how to gather the troops."

Seeing Amanda's response (though having a hard time restraining anger herself at that point), Sophia asked, "Why is he doing this to them? Isn't killing them enough?"

"Yeah, it's enough," Ashley said with a sigh, "but not for him. Cletus was signed on to take part in this game almost a year ago, and as a way of getting into shape for the occasion he decided to voluntarily spend some time in Bunazca to harden him up. Got stabbed in the chest with a pitchfork and had his ears lopped off for all his troubles, but he learned a few things."

She waved her arm theatrically at the bodies, "This here is what some of the cannibal tribes would do in the outer rings of the city as a way of desecrating their enemies. Typically they'd write their tribe names in the sand with blood, but Cletus, well, he just likes showing off how many-"

A startled exclamation from the rear of the church caused Ashley, Sophia, Iago and Amanda to simultaneously whirl around with guns drawn. Had the figure been even remotely larger, odds were high that they would have shot him to death immediately. Thankfully, the boy wasn't. Though his arms were laden down with candles and the guitar on his back changed his profile, Chad Doerner, a.k.a. Boy # 25, couldn't have easily been mistaken for Grendel. Despite being stared down by four people with guns, the boy had an utterly serene look on his face.

"Hello everyone. Amanda, Iago, Sophia, Ms. Vasquez," Chad said calmly with an imaginary tip of the hat, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your conversation, I was just looking for some candles. If you mean to kill me, I'd understand, but could you at least let me light a few of these first?" The pile of candles in his arms was incongruous and bulky, a mix of colors and sizes that seemed to indicate they'd been pulled from some drawer of miscellany as opposed to the church's main supply.

"Chad, what are you doing here?" Sophia finally asked. None of the people within the church really had any idea of how to read the boy. Like most of the people in school did, they all _knew _Chad, but nobody could say for sure that they really knew much about him. In terms of the game, they could all plainly see that he had a pistol down the front of his pants, a guitar strapped to his back, and some candles in his arms, but that was it.

"These people... our classmates here, they died badly. I cannot say of course that I was around to witness what had happened to them, but given this display I can make some fair assumptions," he said with downcast eyes.

"Yeah, they died pretty fucking badly," Sophia admitted with some anger, "we were there."

"I just wouldn't want to leave things at that. The spirit, soul, atman, force, Ch'i, whatever you wish to call it, cannot be at rest under circumstances such as this. I was going to light some candles and pray to their gods for a peaceful journey into whatever might be their journey into the next life," the boy said with such earnestness it was hard for even Ashley to speak against. He smiled sadly as he looked to the group before him, and began setting some of the candles on the floor underneath their bodies.

"I do not know whom all of them prayed to, if they prayed to any deity or form thereof, but I shall do my best to do them all justice," Chad said simply.

"Isaac wasn't really the churchgoing type," Basim said from the front doors of the church, "and Aziz is Muslim."

Amanda looked gratefully to the boy as he stepped back into the church, walking to him and wrapping her arms around him. The act seemed to offer little comfort to the boy, but Amanda was glad that he didn't push her away.

"We need to cut him down," Basim said, "he needs to be cleaned, covered in cloth and face Mecca. I know some of the prayer, I can lead you in what I know..."

"You can't cut him down," Ashley said, "we can't cut any of them down. If you do, he'll come after you."

"Then have him come after me," Basim said forcefully as he walked to the pole in the wall the bodies ropes were tied to, "he won't be given a proper burial, but so help me I'm going to do for him what I can. If he's after me, he's after me. Frankly, I don't think I'd mind a shot at him now that we know what we've got coming."

"You're not the only one," Sophia responded.

"I'll take my chances too," Amanda replied. Sensing little objection from Iago, Ashley or Chad, Basim pulled the barong from his belt and began cutting down the bodies. With some effort, Amanda, Basim, Chad and Sophia set the bodies next to one another and preparing them with some ceremony. Though Iago and Ashley stood around watching, they did not stop it from happening. If anything, Amanda could see that Ashley was taking distinct pleasure in watching what they were doing. At first, she thought that Ashley just got a kick out of watching them work. However, after a moment of angry working, the girl realized what Ashley's smile was really about.

She wasn't glad to see them working. She was glad to see that they wanted Grendel dead too.

_We're throwing our hats in with her; what the hell have we gotten ourselves into?_


	31. Behind The Scenes: Hour 16

**

* * *

Hour 16**

**Behind the Scenes**

* * *

The snowmobile that was supposed to offer relief and resupply was late. Not that it was all that unexpected (there were a lot of snipers towers that needed the extra supplies), but the fact that it was supposed to give Pvts. Toynbee and Dietrich a couple hours or so of relief made them all the more anxious for its arrival. Dietrich in particular looked rather grim as he kept his eyes out on the snowy plain. _A few minutes away from this hellhole, wouldn't that be like heaven on Earth?_

"You know I actually fucked her once?" Sgt. Barry Charon, a.k.a. the bane of Toynbee and Dietrich's existence, asked. The soldier did his best to make the question sound casual, but they knew well enough that he was trying to set up yet another boastful conversation. And as usual, if they didn't indulge him, odds are that he would have continued with the subject whether they liked it or not.

"Fucked who?" Dietrich asked with a yawn. Looking over to Toynbee for some backup in the argument that was likely to come, Dietrich could only see the younger soldier checking out his rifle in an effort to look busy. Ever since they'd left the tower to pick up Charon's deer, the kid had been quiet and carried a strange, frightened look to him. _Wonder what spooked him._

"Ashley fucking Vasquez, that's who," Charon said enthusiastically, "winner of BR3 and not too bad too. I mean it was during processing and she didn't really know it, but I was pretty good."

"Really romanced her, didn't ya?"

"Sure you did," Dietrich responded with a resigned shrug. Agreeing with him seemed to be the best way to end conversations, but Dietrich had a hard time not baiting him. Much as Charon might have been irritating, he could also be funny in a messed up sort of way if you really let him be. Not on purpose of course, Charon's jokes were absolutely terrible, but letting Charon be Charon odds were that he'd continue to spout off stupid shit if you let him go long enough. If it wasn't about pissing into the wind, it was about his fame. If it wasn't about his fame, it would be about how many famous people he knew. Lacking those other topics though, it was always about sex.

There were a lot of soldiers who'd given in to raping the unconscious girls (and some of the boys, though most of that was joking back and forth at the new recruits) during the processing portion of the game. Although the big wigs behind the game had tried to cut down on this practice for some time due to the fact that it often happened to injure the girls before the game and cut down on their performance, there were still some soldiers who gave in to the despicable practice. There were plenty out there who wanted a chance at boasting that they had sex with the winner of the game before she won, and with the decent (albeit not perfect) track record girls had at winning, there was always a chance. It wasn't one that Dietrich took part in (and one he was pretty sure Toynbee, boy scout that he was, also didn't), but it also wasn't one that he was going to stop. The fight really just wasn't worth the trouble.

And, for all intents and purposes, Dietrich was pretty sure that most of Charon's boasts were full of shit. Generally speaking this was a pretty good assumption for _anything _that Charon would claim, but in terms of his sexual conquests it was more than a fair assumption. If you were to trust everything that he'd said about the BR girls he'd taken a shot at, he'd have fucked every girl who'd taken part in an American Battle Royale twice in every hole and then some. _Especially _the girls from the Third Annual Battle Royale. In the long run they didn't have the highest number of beautiful girls in United States Battle Royale history (Florida would probably take that legacy, problematic though it was), but it still had one of the most popular casts due to the horrific nature of the fighting and the personalities involved. It was a fair assumption that Charon didn't have a poke at Ashley Vasquez because, well, the girl wasn't the best looking in the world. Sure, she had her qualities, but her tough, almost mannish face probably wouldn't have attracted Charon's eye much back then. _No, he strikes me more as a Brat Pack kind of guy. Ashley, she's probably too much of a bitch for even him to want to deal with._

"Damn right I did," Charon said with pride.

"Well good on ya if ya did," Dietrich responded with some irritation, "but if you really want to impress, go after her while she's awake and able to put up a fight. You get into bed with that chica then and you'll impress the hell out of me."

Charon looked to the younger soldier with a scowl that seemed to last a few seconds too long. Dietrich was bracing for a heavy and unnecessarily poorly spoken argument when Charon smiled broadly and laughed, "All right, I'll make a bet out of that."

"Will you now?" Dietrich asked, intrigued.

"Yeah, paycheck from this game says that if Ashley walks out of here, I can bang her. Easy," Charon said with a confident smile. It wasn't a deal that Dietrich was going to take lightly; they were getting paid well for their work on the game, and forfeiting that check would have set him back quite a bit. Toynbee flashed Dietrich an almost pleading look, one that practically screamed how bad an idea it was to get into Charon for money was. _On the other hand, the way things are goin' down..._

"Sure, I'll take that bet," Dietrich said with an outstretched hand, "the way you got it with the ladies I'll take that as easy money."

"Yeah, easy money for me," Charon said, "already been in one winner's pants, while they were awake and able to put up a fight as you would say."

"Who, Cletus?" Toynbee said out of nowhere. Immediately after he said it, the boy looked as if he wished he hadn't said a thing. Dietrich had to do his best to keep from rolling around on the floor laughing at the younger soldier's suggestion. _Ballsy kid. Stupid, but ballsy._

In a rare moment, Charon seemed to realize it was a joke and actually laughed out loud. Toynbee looked as if a great weight had been removed from his shoulders.

"Nope, Cora Bright Tree. Met her at the Second Annual BR-Con down in San Diego. Girl had been hitting the firewater pretty hard, but it still took a little working and wooing, but I worked my magic and got to rail her. She was a lousy fuck, but at least she could make noise," Charon said with pride. The other two soldiers did their best not to show any disgust, but it was hard under the circumstances not to let _everything _show.

Then again, the story didn't sound too unbelievable by Charon's standards. It was widely known that Cora had taken her victory of the Sixth Annual United States harder than most of the other surviving winners. She had been in and out of rehab over the last year and a half for various drug and alcohol problems and had become something of a tabloid darling. Put someone as inherently sleazy in the presence of someone as damaged as Cora Bright Tree, and bad things were bound to happen. On the plus side, at least they were saying that she'd been making some improvement recently. She'd even been tapped to head up a USO show to the boys fighting the terrorists hiding out in Scandinavia, along with Kelsey Starr and some other pop princess twats. _Fuck that cheap pop music, give me some good old Larry Underwood any day._

"Resupply's here," Toynbee said idly as he finished up with his rifle. Though the kid tried to hide it, it was clear that he was as excited to leave for a few hours as Dietrich was. _R & R, god bless it. Thank God at a time like this that Charon's as gung ho as he is, you couldn't force him away from the tower and it's glorious mini-fridge and cots combo if you wanted to._

It took a minute for the figures on the snowmobile below them to gather together their supplies, but when they came up the stairs a moment later they were given a heroes welcome by the three soldiers within the tower. Well, about as much of a heroes welcome as could be offered.

"You bring booze?" Dietrich asked jokingly.

"Porn?" Charon asked hopefully.

"No dice boys," Cpl. Ben Paris, a young man from Chicago who looked like he belonged in a toothpaste commercial, "got some more food, coupla magazines, letters from home, standard shit."

"But you are going to take over after us for a couple hours, aren't ya?" Toynbee asked hopefully.

"Not yet boys," the achingly cute Cpl. Jessica Holle said with her slight Midwestern twang, "we still gotta drop some stuff off to the next tower. They're having some computer problems back at base and we got started on our supply run on the wrong tower. Take another half hour, tops."

Now as it was, both Toynbee and Dietrich were pretty nice guys. They didn't want to subject Paris and Holle to the horrors of a few hours alone with Sgt. Barry Charon. They were pretty decent folks. Paris was funnier than hell, and though he was about as white as it got he could have made a fairly decent living as a rapper if he really tried hard enough. And Holle... well who didn't love Holle? Even though she had a fair amount of screen time in the Behind Battle Royale documentary, she didn't let it get to her head like Charon did. Her fair blonde hair and down-home cute looks made her popular among the predominantly male soldiers behind the Battle Royale program, but more as someone they could protect than try to bed (not that she needed protection of course, despite her lithe frame she was one of the best boxers and snipers in the unit). Subjecting the two of them to their time with Charon sooner rather than later would have been selfish. Then again, willfully subjecting themselves to more time with the man than necessary was also a terrifying concept.

"We'll pick up those last few deliveries for ya, no sweat," Dietrich said as he grabbed his backpack.

"You sure?" Holle asked with a wary look (_probably doesn't want to spend more time with Charon than she's gotta either_), "We'd need to sign it all off to ya."

"No problem," Toynbee responded, with a conspiratorial nod to Dietrich, "we could use the fresh air."

"Suit yourselves boys," Paris said as he handed off the clipboard with their delivery schedule to Dietrich. With that, the two snipers gratefully wandered down the tower's staircase. They tried their best not to look too happy as they sprinted outdoors to the snowmobile, but even the normally reserved Toynbee couldn't hide his jubilation as he high-fived Dietrich the moment they exited the building.

"Freedom," Toynbee said with the first real smile he'd had in hours.

"Freedom baby," Dietrich responded, "for now."

* * *

The mess hall wasn't great, but it was good enough for the military and civilian personnel who had to call it their home away from home for the course of the Battle Royale. There were no more than a dozen round tables surrounded by chairs throughout the room, each with their own supply of napkins, condiments and an odd assortment of newspapers and magazines that had been left behind by previous owners. The steam line held the best food that the American military had to offer, as well as a couple kiosks from game sponsors like McDonalds and Big Kahuna Burgers. A couple plasma TV screens around the walls alternated between cable entertainment channels, news, and the live broadcast of the game itself. There were barely a dozen people in the room, most spending their lunch breaks playing one of the few ancient video game machines that had been shipped in or working off a game of floating craps. As Dietrich and Toynbee sat down at a table with a couple of techies from The Dirty Dozen (now Eleven) to enjoy their burgers (Big Kahuna for Dietrich, McDonalds for Toynbee), all but the TV broadcasting the game were showing news from The American Confederated Networks, all focusing on the terrorist attack on the Detroit Situs Building. The techies seemed more interested in talking about the computer problems they'd been having for most of the day, and Dietrich seemed more interested in his food. Having had little news from the outside world in their sniper's tower, it was Toynbee who finally addressed the elephant in the room aloud.

"Almost a hundred dead, what the fuck?" Toynbee asked idly as he put down his burger.

"Shit happens," Dietrich responded as he crammed his mouth with fries, "The Raptors like blowing shit up to try and show they're right, and we're the ones who have to take it to make them look bad. They say they're being patriots, and they try to make us look like the bad guys just because we make kids kill each other."

"But we're the ones doing our patriotic duty, we're not the ones killing innocent people for no real reason, we're just following orders, right?" Toynbee asked in an effort to convince both Dietrich and himself. Even then, the words still sounded hollow. Meaningless. _This is falling apart every second... and the voices haven't stopped, have they? The children? They're following you, they're going to kill you..._

"You're preaching to the choir my friend," Dietrich said as he took another large bite from his burger.

"They're true believers," that nervous-looking Jewish techie, Kaplan said, "can't really try and associate any meaning or logic to their actions as you know 'em. They just do what they do because they believe they're right."

"But what does blowing up a building in the middle of a major city do to prove their point?" Toynbee asked.

"It's their way of sayin' _Viva La Revolucíon! _kiddo," the older, spiky-red haired techie Woxan said in his thick Louisiana drawl, "they think that just 'cause they can get their hands on some guns and bombs that they can take over and do things right where the rest of this glorious machine have failed."

"Yeah, they want to take things over, return the balance to what it used to be by upsetting what it's become now," Kaplan added, "but they're not that powerful now. Blowing up buildings the way they do now, well, that's just their way of trying to tell the world they're not impotent, and that they're really capable of doing some damage."

"And it's working too," Woxan said as he toyed with his cheap-looking basket of fish and chips.

"How do you mean? We're doing our best to route them out, we've even taken down some of their cells and have been searching for their members who've run off to Scandinavia. How could we be doing wrong by that?" Toynbee asked again. The two techies looked at one another for a moment before laughing to themselves, while Dietrich tried to ignore the younger soldiers lack of knowledge on the subject.

"Because what we immediately find don't really matter jack shit in the long run," Woxan said.

"Yeah, by doing what they're doing, they're working at gaining support from the overseas terrorist groups and countries that ain't exactly fond of our practices. I mean, you want some scary folk you look to what those Wild Seven assholes in Japan, those Blue Dragon Boys in the Korean peninsula and the French Children's Resistance have done throughout Europe. They've all thrown their hats behind the actions of The Raptors. Canada and Mexico have already refused to extradite any suspected terrorist from the states, and the governments of the United Kingdom, Australia and Russia have already refused to denounce their activities," Kaplan ranted. It was all stuff that Toynbee had heard time and again, but after having spent some time actually in the Battle Royale, it gave him some new perspective on the matter. _Killing leading to more killing. By fighting us, they fuel our enemies._

"So they're looking to get support from the people who could actually fight us seriously?" Toynbee asked.

"You got it kiddo," Woxan replied with a broad smile, "they're trying to start somethin' of a new revolutionary or civil war 'round these parts and a world war 'round the rest of the god-fearing Battle Royale loving world to try and take down our system once and for all. Real fuckers, ain't they?"

"Tell me about it," Kaplan said with a roll of the eyes.

"Seriously, just wring 'em up one at a time by some flag poles and we won't have to deal with them anymore," Dietrich responded. The soldier looked idly to the television screen in an effort to take his mind off the conversation. There was one monitor still showing the game, and it would have been nice to connect to the business at hand. Instead, the words 'BREAKING NEWS' shot across it and the remaining screens.

"Anyone got volume control on that?" Dietrich asked. Unfortunately, there was no real remote. They were at the mercy of whatever the guys behind the scenes had the TV's set for. The news quickly flashed to the helicopter image of some major American metropolis, but under the circumstances it was hard to tell which. The city was filled with a massive cloud of smoke, dust and debris that seemed to obscure much of downtown.

"Another attack in Detroit?" Kaplan asked.

"No, the skyline's wrong," Dietrich responded, "this city's bigger."

As if to confirm this statement, the words flashed by the bottom of the screen.

'CHICAGO: TERRORIST ATTACK DESTROYS SEARS TOWER; THOUSANDS FEARED DEAD'

The camera soon shifted to views on the ground of rescue personnel trying to save people who had been hit with falling debris. People running through the streets bleeding and covered in a fine gray powder. Children crying. The faint outline of the massive tower's wreckage as it had fallen against a couple nearby office buildings. It was chaos. Madness. Toynbee felt like he was going to be sick. _And this is just the beginning, isn't it?_


	32. Hour 17: 36 Contestants Remaining

**

* * *

Hour 17**

**36 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

Sun was beginning to set over Grover's Mill, and already the contestants of the Eighth Annual United States Battle Royale could feel its effects. The temperatures, which had been bearably cool over the past day, had begun to drop sharply as the sun disappeared over the horizon. More clouds began forming around the town, and everything seemed to indicate a good snowstorm would begin sometime after dark. Most of the contestants having lived in Michigan all their lives, they knew to get inside sooner rather than later. It would be a dangerous tactic, as staying inside meant that they would be more vulnerable in some ways to attack, but on the other hand it did prevent them from freezing to death. It was an unfortunate tradeoff.

And it was one that Madison Holland, a.k.a. Girl # 14, absolutely hated. She was a fan of climate control. Heat in the winter, air conditioning whenever she was on vacation with her family somewhere warm. No snow, no rain, nothing that could ruin her meticulous image. Things were getting bad, and there were very few places in town that would be both warm _and _entirely safe. Much as she would have wanted to judge a suitable hideaway based around the material comforts that it offered, she also was beginning to understand that it wasn't something she'd really get to be choosy about under the circumstances. People were dying left, right and center, and without a weapon better than the sharpened plunger handle she held, she would be up shit creek when the big guys started coming around hunting. She was beyond kidding herself that there were only a few murderers in the game, the massive explosions and gun battles she could hear just a few hours before seemed to indicate that.

On the other hand, she reasoned, the fighting might offer some bizarre level of safety. By the sounds of the explosions and gunshots, the battles (if that was what they were of course) seemed pretty fierce. People would skirmish, they would start running toward each other and then away. That had been some time ago, odds were pretty good that there wouldn't be anyone left where the battles had taken place. True, it was a gamble in and of itself, but it was one she was willing to take. By the time night fell, Madison wanted to be nice and cozy.

Given the option of following the explosions to the east and the massive gunfight to the west, Madison followed the sound of the fight. The plume of smoke seemed to indicate that whatever safety that was offered around the explosion site might only be temporary. Hell, unless the storm kicked in sooner rather than later, that half of town might be temporary. _West it is._

Much as she would have fought and grumbled about her circumstances, even Madison was fascinated about how well she had been doing. For the longest time she had felt helpless without her minions, and hearing about them getting whittled away one at a time (_not to mention that traitor bitch Natalya and that whore Mallory trying to get in touch_) had discouraged her greatly. The fear and feelings of betrayal had passed (some) in that time, replaced by an odd sense of exhilaration. She was surviving, albeit alone, and she was prospering. She could hear the shots, she could hear the screams. She had seen the bodies in the street (_who the hell got their head exploded like that?_), she knew that there were people out there who were fighting and dying. And so far, she hadn't been one of them. She was _surviving._ She was surviving when they weren't. It felt good.

It would take some work, she was not going to deny that, but if she kept her head down and found a way of getting her hands on a gun in the near future, there was every chance that she could pull off a win. It would be one of the great underdog stories of all time, and that filled her with pride. _The lone, beautiful girl betrayed by all the people she thought were her friends is forced to survive in a hostile environment dodging murderers and monsters while fighting and winning whenever she can. That'd make one helluva movie of the week, wouldn't it? Might even get a book deal out of it, maybe a few ads... Battle Royale winners always seem to do good on that front, and none of them look half as good as you do (except that Indian bitch out of South Dakota, but nobody gives a shit about her). You can do this._

It didn't take long to figure out where the gun battle she had heard had taken place. Even though the wind and a few stray snow flurries had started to cover over any exterior evidence, she could still see the mass of trampled earth and blood on the snow that surrounded the Grover's Mill Community Church. _It's a gamble. There might still be people in there ready to fight, ready to kill. Looks like something out of a goddamn horror movie. Seems dead though. Take your chances, right?_

With her makeshift spear held out before her, Madison entered the massive front doors of the church. Any hope for the building to be warmer than the rest of the town were quickly dashed when she felt the icy chill let in by the many shot-out and broken stained glass windows. True to the exterior appearance of the building, there were many bullet holes scattered throughout, some burned out fires, and everything was a mess. On the floor there were five bloody-looking mounds covered in already stained sheets (_did those used to be curtains?_). Some burned out candles surrounded the bodies in a bizarre pattern that she had no real reason to try and disturb. The display was disgusting, disheartening, and in it's own way pretty frightening. _This would be perfect though, wouldn't it? If it weren't so damn cold..._

Seeing that the church had a back room, Madison was tempted to find out what condition it remained in. Cautiously making her way into the back, she was disgusted by the smell of age and rot that permeated the room. The old supplies that had been used by Isaac's revolution to block off access to the room and its cameras smelled of old paper and mold. But, the room was warm. The back exit was already blocked off by its previous occupants, and the only other door in looked like it could be easily secured with a little work. And if the pile of blankets in the corner were any indication, there was the distinct chance that she might even be able to throw in a few hours of sleep with some work. Grab some terrible food, some water, start to figure out a game plan... yeah, things were beginning to look up for Madison Holland.

* * *

Symbiosis was not a word that Cynthia Argento, a.k.a. Girl # 12, couldn't even spell let alone actually know the meaning of. That being said, she did know the concept perhaps better than anyone else in Amberlaine High School. There were some who looked at them oddly, there were many that questioned their sanity (and sexual orientations), but in the end they were just really close friends.

And now that Diana Halsey, a.k.a. Girl # 13, was gone, Cynthia had absolutely no idea what she was going to do with herself. It was a situation that she didn't know or understand, and the confusion led to her being even more afraid than she had been even at the height of the battle of the church. For a while she had cried, but the cold made that more painful than anything else, so she tried to stop. It was hard to do.

For all intents and purposes, Cynthia shouldn't have had a hard time fitting in with the better circles in high school. With curly black hair, a gorgeous face and good figure, she could have fallen into pretty much any of the popular circles with ease for purely cosmetic reasons. As it was, she had made it onto the cheerleading squad successfully and had a large group of people she knew she could call friends. _But they're not your friends. Not really. Just friends with you because of Diana._

It had always been about Diana. It probably always would be about Diana. It would probably end with Diana if Cynthia had her way.

"Where are you?" Cynthia asked fearfully, looking over her shoulder as she wandered to the edge of town. In the chaos following the battle at the church, she had lost track of Diana. Had things been less crazy she would have tried yelling for her friend, do whatever it took to find her and make sure that they didn't part. In retrospect, that would have almost certainly been a good idea. Instead, she had continued walking west through the town. She could see the massive form of the Briar Patch approaching her with every step. _What're you gonna do when you get there? Keep walking? Just take a left or right and keep going, you'll find her sooner or later. You've gotta._

When Cynthia and Diana had been in elementary school, they were both incredibly awkward, gangly girls. They made easy targets for the rest of the kids and had each taken their beatings from the older girls during the early years. Back then, they had become friends simply as a means of survival; people were much less likely to pick on them if they were together. It didn't take too much for the girls to become inseparable. They grew up closer than most identical twins, finding need for few other friends and even creating their own secret language that they could use whenever they wanted people to stop bothering them. Things had been good then.

But by the time middle school had come around and puberty kicked in, the two of them had suddenly begun to grow into their bodies. They were no longer gawky and awkward, they were suddenly becoming graceful and beautiful young women. Diana had taken to this change quite easily. Though she wasn't one of the most book smart people in the world, she seemed to become something of a social savant, easily picking up on how the world and groups worked. She'd realized how powerful beauty was and how they could use it to make "real" friends outside of each other. She'd been the one who suggested they use their beauty to become cheerleaders, and she was the one who always managed to get them into social situations. Every time Cynthia would agree with what Diana had planned because she would never deny Diana anything. _But those sucked. They always sucked. They made Diana happy, but what the hell did they bring me? Sure, the boys were all right, still are I guess, but what the hell am I supposed to do with all of it?_

Cynthia didn't ask for much out of life. She was fine with her middle-class existence, she was fine with being a fairly mediocre cheerleader and an even worse student. All she'd ever wanted was Diana by her side telling her that everything was going to be all right and that they'd be friends to the end. _Diana makes everything make sense._

And Diana was gone. She was somewhere in the godforsaken town, probably scared out of her mind, just as unarmed as Cynthia, and there was no way that they could get in contact with each other. Diana didn't have a cell phone, Cynthia's had run out of battery long before the game ever kicked in. _So search. Go house to house if you have to. Diana's gotta be somewhere, right? She can't be dead. She knows what she's doing, she's got the smarts. You just gotta keep looking for her however you can._

Cynthia came face to face with the Briar Patch. The ugly mass of razor wire sat eerily in the snow, kept free from the blanket of white by means that she could not understand if she really wanted to. Seeing a sniper's tower in the darkening distance, Cynthia waved to it with both arms. It was a stupid hope, but one she was going to hold out all the same. They wanted to keep her in there, but they might help her all the same if she asked nicely enough.

"HEY IN THERE!" she yelled, "HAVE YOU SEEN DIANA? SHE'S BLACK AND REALLY PRETTY WITH GREEN EYES AND STRAIGHT HAIR, HAVE YOU SEEN HER?"

She could vaguely make out activity in the tower (unaware that it was simply a couple soldiers pointing and laughing at her), but found no more than that. Tears began to form in the corners of Cynthia's eyes. In frustration, she grabbed at a curled length of razor wire and tried to shake it. Like a hot knife through butter (and feeling very much like she'd been touched with that hot knife), the wire sliced through her gloves and into the palms of her hands. Lines of bright red blood formed in each palm, smarting terribly and causing Cynthia to flail her arms in frustration.

"It's not fair!" she practically shrieked as she fell into the snow.

* * *

The center did not hold. That was the problem from the start, and one that Hera Morgan, a.k.a. Girl # 20, could have called fairly early on. If the center was weak, the plan would fall down all around them. Focusing their entire plan around Isaac was an inherently bad idea. True, he could rally people like no other and seemed to have a sense of gaining intense loyalty among some of his followers, but beyond that he was not a great leader. He kept people on short leashes, dispersing information as he saw most convenient. In that way he almost seemed more like a terrorist than a revolutionary. _Though really, what's the difference?_

How many people died because of Isaac Freemantle? Dozens, easily. Maybe even forty or fifty depending on what happened back at the school. He could have done some good, he could have just left people where they were. Become a politician later in life, change the system from within before going at it like a bull in a china shop. But no, no, he wanted to be the fighter. He wanted to be the revolutionary. And what did that get him in the end? _God damn it, the one time you trust him to be right, and you nearly end up in the hands of a maniac. Great._

She had run for a long time, stopping only when what little was left of her breath had disappeared. She didn't know where exactly in town she was (having run an effective zigzag pattern to avoid anyone following her easily), but the alley she had stopped in seemed comfortable enough. It would not be for long, but it would allow some safety for the briefest of moments. Time enough to think.

She could not tell how many people had bought it in the massacre at the church. Hera had made a break for it pretty early on, making a run for it when the monster was destroying Christina. _It got Christina and Hugo definitely. Looked like Isaac got shot too, but if anyone could survive something like that, it'd be him. How much more blood on his hands?_

But the worst part about it... was that he'd failed. With the people they had gathered together, with the brains they could put to work and the bodies to make it work, they could have made something work. While she doubted Isaac's claim that they had a way of taking off the collars, she did not doubt that they could have found a way with enough time. If Isaac had just been able to organize people in a way to successfully defend themselves... then nothing, nothing would have gone wrong.

And it was over. It was all over. Isaac's grand, insane dream had failed, and they were all doomed to play the game. _Play the game... think you can really go that far? Think you've really got what it takes, to do what needs to be done at a time like this?_

"Yeah, yeah you do," Hera said aloud.

There were a lot of contestants who had a lot to live for outside the Battle Royale. Family, friends, bright shiny futures that would never be seen. Hera would not begrudge them what they called their own, but at the same time she would selfishly admit that she had more to live for than many probably did. The oldest of eight siblings with a single mother, she was practically used to being a parent on her own. Alvin, Cleo, Ares, Martha, Janey, Nicola and Claude had always looked to her to fill in the gaps that their mother could not, and there were many of them. She had been the nurturing one, she had been the supportive one. Remove her from the equation, and... _the center does not hold._

She could play the game. For them, she would. It was a terrible thing to consider, but if it was the only way...

Reaching into her jacket pocket, she was reminded of the heavy, folded pamphlet that felt like a lead weight. Miranda's pamphlet. _Common Sense For A New Era._ She had died for the ideals within that pamphlet. Yes, it would be too easy to blame Isaac for wrapping her up in that insane rhetoric in the first place, but it would also do little for Miranda's memory if she didn't give her some of the credit. Miranda was an intelligent enough girl, she didn't need someone holding her hand the entire time. She read the pamphlet, she knew the ideals and she believed them as fiercely as anyone. It argued on behalf of revolution, it argued against the oppression that they faced every day as Americans. _It was right!_

It would be possible to try again. She could see if she could get together with any of the remaining contestants who still thought the teaming-up idea was a good one. It would be hard to get everyone back together, but it wouldn't be impossible. They could rebuild. They could fix the center, start on a foundation that took the necessarily cautious approach as to how they could handle their affairs. At least it was worth a shot, right?

She was conflicted. A hand in each of her jacket pockets, Hera felt the conflicting but comforting feelings of the pamphlet on one side and her butterfly knife on the other. With any luck it would be possible to have some time to think over the two options _before _having to choose from them.

"Hey, ho, let's go," she sang softly to herself as she stepped out into the street. The coast was clear, if she just kept low and didn't happen to stumble upon any snipers...

It was then that she heard the figure approaching from behind.

* * *

There were some in the game who would claim that beauty was a curse. Sadie Bourne, a.k.a. Girl # 16, was not one of them. She was one of the ugly ones, and she knew it. Her brown hair was stringy and tended to clump up really easily. She had a pronounced overbite and teeth so bad she'd been in braces and retainers for almost eight years. She was fat; not grotesquely so, but enough that she'd never really be mistaken for any of the prettier girls in school. She was an easy target for the bullies and mean girls, and for the most part she had taken it because it was easier than fighting back. _But not anymore. They had you then, they could take you then, they could make you pay all they wanted to then. But not now. Now you've got the power..._

They had tormented her terribly, removed pretty much everything she had ever considered nice in her life. The one nice dress she had... they had ruined. They knew that she was going to be taking her class picture that day, _the picture for the yearbook_, and they took it away from her. They took it away, and they laughed at her, and there was nothing she could do to them. The cutting had been good to ease the pain, but it did not make anything better. It made nothing right. _You've got the chance now to make things right. To even the score. To mess up those pretty little whores and teach them for what they've done. Make them pay until their very last, miserable little breath._

She could hunt, that was definitely an option, but as it was it would be more difficult for her than some. Being larger and naturally slower than most of the girls she would have wanted to kill, she would have had a harder time chasing them down without a gun to close the distance. Having started out with a cattle prod and gained an ice ax from killing Nicole, nothing much had changed to help her hunt. So she had stayed put in an area that would likely get some level of traffic. The high school hadn't had nearly as many people as she would have expected wandering its halls (that she could see, though some had hidden out in opposite ends from her), but it did allow her to play a somewhat predatory game. _Play the Venus Flytrap, let them come to you, kill them as they come, and pretty good luck with them at that. Nothing that you couldn't handle. Well, almost._

Nicole's wandering in had been amazing luck. She couldn't put up much of a fight, and in the end yielded a more useful weapon than what she had been assigned. Not that the cattle prod didn't have its charms of course. _Get it on the skin, give them more pain than they could even imagine. Knock 'em down, make 'em suffer... finish 'em off. Just like Nicole's eye._

Nicole was dead. She had lost Natalya, but that was only a temporary setback. Everything that was lost could be found again. Given enough time, the beautiful and the evil would come before her, and she would be able to do away with them. _But first... first you must show them what life is like on this end. Scar them, mutilate them, ugly them up worse than you could ever be. Spite their faces, ruin their forms, and make them suffer..._

Sadie could hear the gun battle at the church with crystal clarity from the high school once it started. _There were multiple different guns, some big, some smaller, some automatic by the sound of it. Lots of guns mean lots of people, even heard some screaming, right? Could definitely follow up on that, catch someone unawares, maybe even someone with a gun, maybe even one of them._

It was hard to leave the relative safety of the school after having learned all of its dark corners and useful ambush spots, but what needed to be done, needed to be done. In as much of a run as she could muster, Sadie took off for the nearby church as the gunfire continued. From a distance she could see people stumbling off into the various corners of the town, some bleeding, some uninjured. Some went in groups, others made a break out on their own to the separate corners of the town. They were hard to make out, some were clearly taller than others, some fat, some fast, some slow... But the girls were easy to make out. Finding one who had broken off from the herd, she began pursuit. There was no way she could catch up, not by a long shot... but she had patience. _Just follow the tracks in the snow, wait until she tires, and she's all yours..._

So she had followed. It had taken more than an hour, but she had followed. She had followed the girl, watching from afar and sneaking glances every so often. The girl hadn't gone inside. She'd been swift, but she was easy to follow. It was just a matter of time.

The girl had stopped. She was tired. Stressed. Easy to surprise. Lifting the ice ax high above her head, Sadie ran toward the other girl with a scream.

* * *

Whirling around to meet the figure behind her, Hera quickly flipped the butterfly knife from her pocket and made to stab whoever it was.

"Shit girl, don't stab me!" Ruben "Rub" Wood, a.k.a. Boy # 5, shouted at the top of his lungs. He stood in the doorway of a business whose glass display cases showcased a number of bizarre crystals and new age books. Not a place she would have expected to find Ruben standing in (_or in a Podunk town like this for that matter_), but a welcome sight all the same.

"Sorry Rub," she responded, looking over his shoulder to see Jordan Miike, a.k.a. Boy # 16, and Julie Hewitt, a.k.a. Girl # 19, standing in the building behind him.

"It's OK," he responded with a newly cocky (and slightly frightened) smile, "come on in here, storm's coming and we gotta regroup, ya know?"

_So it's back to re-teaming with Isaac's people? That's really how this is gonna go? Ah, what the hell._

"Hey, ho, let's go," Hera muttered with a slightly relieved smile as she joined the refugee group.

* * *

Cynthia only had time to half-turn before Sadie brought the ice-ax down. The spike rammed through her shoulder and into her lung, stifling any chance for a scream and sucking the air from her body in one blow. Kicking Cynthia to the ground, Sadie withdrew the weapon and raised it above her head again, slamming it into the downed girl's stomach. Blood began gushing freely from the wounded girl's mouth as she raised her hands feebly to try and fend off the attack. Had she been able to, she would have screamed at the top of her lungs. Instead, she could only watch and writhe in agony as Sadie slammed the ice ax into her gut once more.

Cynthia could see only red. Her blood in the snow, on Sadie, in her eyes... It was all fading away, the pain becoming a heavy numbness as she slowly bled to death. Time began to move more slowly, and though she may not have been one of the brightest bulbs in the circuit, she was more than aware that she was dying. One more strike, a hit to the head or heart, and it would be over. _One more strike and I'll be on the other side. Will Diana be there too? I hope so..._

But Sadie was not that merciful. She came to administer pain, and she was going to give it out. Dropping the ice ax into the snow, Sadie lifted the smaller girl into her arms. She quickly and easily relieved Cynthia of her blood-drenched parka and snow pants, leaving them in the snow like so much garbage. Despite her resignation, Cynthia still fought idly with what little strength she had left. Her bloody hands clawed at the larger girl's face and clothes, getting no more reaction from Sadie than plain disgust.

With Cynthia stripped down to her street clothes, Sadie easily tossed her into the massive wall of razor wire that was the Briar Patch. Though Cynthia's screams and protestations before had been feeble, they came with renewed vigor as the razor wire tore at her once beautiful flesh.

Despite her injuries, it took Cynthia a long time to die. Sadie didn't mind watching. Sure, she wasn't one of the people who most actively tried to harass her, but she kept their company. _And she's one of the beautiful people. Rob her, tear her, spite her face..._

Despite the intense cold coming on from the setting sun, Sadie felt warm. Happy. Watching Cynthia die as she fought to escape the Briar Patch was pure, unadulterated, catharsis. Everything was feeling right with the universe again.

* * *

As he had earlier in the morning, the boy some called Cletus Atlas, others called Grendel and gamblers called Boy # 26, watched Sadie take pleasure in the death of one of her classmates. The girl clearly had the killer's instinct and the attitude of a destroyer. _Is she ready? No, not yet. But soon, soon..._

Satisfied with what he had seen, the monster looked to the phone the big wigs had given him. They had been pleased with the slaughter of Isaac and his crew in the church, but there was still one threat in the game they needed taking care of. They would not tell him where the target was (_the tracker would have been nice for that_), but he could find them. Back in the Bun he was one of the best trackers around. Tracker or no tracker, he would find them and hunt them down like a dog. _Get them, and those damn-fool rebs don't stand a chance._

Smiling his lipless smile, Cletus began the hunt anew.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Hey constant readers, just wanted to drop a line and thank you all for sticking with me despite certain lags in story productivity. I've gotten into a considerable rhythm of late and am going to try and keep it up as long as possible, but I aim to keep updates as regular as possible once that rhythm becomes more difficult to maintain. I'm sorry for the problems, but I want to thank you all the same for your kind words and enthusiasm for the story. After all, the success of this series wouldn't be possible without you!

Per a suggestion in one of the reviews, I would also like to draw attention to a side-project that I have been working on of late that not all of y'all might be aware of. In addition to writing 72 Hours: Uprising, I have been designing a series of short stories that take place within the 72 Hours universe to compliment and ultimately add to the experience. Some of them will introduce characters and concepts that will come up later in the story, others will be shorts giving a look into the lives of people living and surviving in the world of the Battle Royale. One story has already been posted, _72 Hours: Call Him Otis_, which you can get to through my profile, while _72 Hours: Savage King _will be posted in the near future. I'll keep updates on both those stories and 72 Hours: Uprising as regular as possible in the near future.

Respectfully,

Anthony Marston

**Updated Note (7/12): **72 Hours: Savage King has been posted; check it out when you get a chance (or when decides to post it, whichever comes first)!


	33. Hour 18: 35 Contestants Remaining

**

* * *

Hour 18**

**35 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

As sun had completely set over Grover's Mill, the town became illuminated by harsh halogen floodlights perched on pre-fab towers and on the corners of buildings. Although it did not exactly add to the atmosphere from a show standpoint, it would allow for better audience viewing than night vision would given the snow. As had happened every six hours since the game began, the speakers situated around the town blared into life with a piercing metallic squeal.

"Good evening Battle Royale contestants, once more this is Banastare Tarleton with your final announcement for the day regarding the status of your friends. This was quite an exciting period, and we would like to congratulate all of you who have finally decided to participate in this wonderful game! So, let's get to the casualties, shall we? Here are your friends in the order that they died: Girl # 22, Kendal Fuchs, sadly lost her head. Boy # 4, Hugo Diaz, got the ax, while Girl # 24, Christina Montressor, just did not have the heart it seems. Girl # 15, Brenda Lennon, met an explosive end. Boy # 8, Aziz Haddad learned that his God does not always favor the martyrs. As always, Boy # 17, Isaac Freemantle, has proven that those who try to fight are always doomed to a messy end. Girl # 11, Phoebe Valverde, learned that winners always prosper, while finally, Girl # 17, Cynthia Argento, found out the hard way that beauty doesn't always get you far. That was eight bodies in six hours people, hardly a record, but a vast improvement over what you have done so far. Good show!"

Tarleton had listened to Kinsey's advice and tried livening up his speeches. The focus groups would respond positively to his changes, but not to any significant extent. Under the circumstances, Tarleton would have simply told them to bugger off. He had more important things to take care of.

"Now, as always, we have some general bits of housekeeping to get through. First and foremost, know that a snowstorm is coming, be sure to keep yourselves warm and bundled up. Cover any and all injuries that you may have to prevent frostbite, and be sure to make sure your feet are warm and dry. There are socks throughout the houses and clothing stores here, be sure to use them! Trench foot is nasty business. As well, now that they have both chosen to make their identities public, I have the most distinct honor to announce the names of our two mystery players! Playing as Boy # 26, you would better know Grendel as Cletus Carrington Atlas, winner of the Fourth Annual United States Battle Royale. Playing as Girl # 26, we have the almost lovely Miss Ashley Vasquez, winner of the Third Annual United States Battle Royale. Let it be known that these two have already killed in the game, and will show you no mercy. If you choose not to fight in the hopes that you will somehow fall through the cracks and make it into the winners circle, know that neither of these two will allow that to happen. If you want to survive, you must fight."

Tarleton paused for a moment in his announcement, clearly none too pleased with what he had to say. Nevertheless, he was trying to play ball, and had to go with it.

"As it has been brought to my attention that you would prefer a slightly more modern selection in music, I shall indulge your interests for this evening. And with that cheerful note, I must say continue fighting the good fight, good night, good luck, and God bless America!"

He wasted little time in getting the music going, letting the 80's rock beat play across the barren snow-covered landscape of Grover's Mill and the thirty-five youths trapped within. Borrowing music from one of the members of The Dirty Dozen (now Eleven) seemed like a silly idea at first, but even Tarleton had to admit that he rather liked the chosen song.

"_Well she was an American girl,_

_Raised on promises,_

_She couldn't help thinkin' that there,_

_Was a little more to life,_

_Somewhere else,_

_After all it was a great big world,_

_With lots of places to run to,_

_Yeah, and if she had to die,_

_Tryin' she had one little promise,_

_She was gonna keep..._

_Oh yeah, all right,_

_Take it easy baby,_

_Make it last all night,_

_She was an American girl..."_

* * *

Although the pair hiding out in the small home in northeast Grover's Mill opted not to turn on any lights within the house, they had made the best of their time in it in a rather homey way. They had raided what few supplies were left in the cupboard, made love a few times in the master bedroom, and spent much of their time luxuriating half-naked (_thank the gods for a working heater_)on the kitchen floor wrapped in a few blankets, smoking and splitting a bottle of wine (good stuff too). Aware that their world was liable to end at any moment, they had decided to live it up as best as they could with what the town had to offer. It was a world all their own, about as separate from the game as was possible. That world was shattered when the announcement rang across the abandoned town.

"All the resources of the United States government, the most powerful political entity in the world if you want to listen to a word they're saying, and all they can afford to play is Tom fuckin' Petty?" Vic Benedict, a.k.a. Boy # 23, asked with a laugh. Although clearly meant as a joke, the remark did not exactly have the effect he intended. Alyssa Fallon, a.k.a. Girl # 23, a.k.a. the love of his life, was hardly amused. She sat looking in shock at the list they had provided and all the names she had been forced to cross out.

"Holy crap we lucked out," she said simply, "I knew all that gunfire we heard must've come from the church. Six people in there died, and we cut and run just in time."

"Cut and run at the right time, you better believe that happy crappy," Vic replied, "I could've told you up front that Isaac'd be dumb enough to get a lot of people killed, I'm just glad we weren't on the short list."

"Who do you think did it?" Alyssa asked, "Hell, who do you think _could _do that?"

"Isaac," Vic said sharply as he thrust his Luger into the air, "Isaac easily. Guy tried pulling off some mass suicide thing maybe, maybe not directly, but maybe said something stupid. Something the other sheep in there didn't like and took offense too, someone throws a name, someone else throws a bullet, and then wham, bam, it's the motherfucking OK Corral in there baby!"

Even despite his grim connotations, Alyssa could not help but laugh, "You've always had a way with words Pumkin."

Even through his black-lined lips, Vic could pull off a smile that could positively dazzle the girl, "Back atcha Honey Bunny."

"All the same though, I think your math's off. Cynthia was in there, and she died after Isaac," Alyssa responded. At this Vic looked charmingly befuddled (another look he could pull off marvelously despite the layered Goth makeup that might have otherwise made him appear gay), but simply shrugged his shoulders.

"What can I say; at least most of them were assholes?" he shrugged. Now this she certainly could _not _deny. Much as she admired the core beliefs of the revolutionary crowd, Alyssa wasn't exactly going to say that she loved the people involved in it. Isaac's problems, as far as she was concerned, were well enough documented to not warrant much further thought. Ditto his attack dogs Christina and Hugo, though for all intents and purposes she did know Hugo to be a pretty decent guy. Brenda had been all high and mighty full of herself and seemed to think volume was the best way to get people to listen to you, while Cynthia was just as vapid as any of the other dumb cheerleaders out there. Phoebe was, for lack of any better wording, a complete bitch. The only name on the list that could elicit some sadness from Alyssa was Aziz. _Not the brightest bulb in the circuit, but a sweet kid. A better person than the pretty-boy and the wannabe-joker he hangs out with._

"Yeah, I know they were asshats," Alyssa responded honestly, "but it's still pretty... wow. Kind of makes things more real, ya know?"

"Not really. This game is about as fucking real as it gets, how the hell is it possible to get any more real?" Vic responded.

Alyssa shrugged, "I don't know, just an odd feeling? It just seemed like... I dunno, that he might have actually been able to pull off the escape. He seemed so damn sure of himself this time, like he really knew what he was doing for once."

"For once," Vic repeated as if to emphasize the point.

"Exactly. I don't know, I mean, he was so sure... and if he's dead, hell, if _all _of them are dead, then there really is no chance for escape after all. We really are gonna have to live through this," Alyssa sighed. It was depressing to admit that she'd held out such patently false hope, but it was still there. Running out in the middle of Isaac's meeting had felt like one of the hardest choices in the world at the time, but since it turned out for the best she couldn't argue with it. _Bleh, that whole thing, *this* whole thing, just one big clusterfucking mess._

"We live through this, we die through this, both pretty good choices. Actually pretty much the only choices, now, ain't they?" Vic asked idly as he put another cigarette between his lips and lit it up.

"Not the only options," Alyssa responded as she stood up and started rooting through one of the kitchen cupboards. Pulling free a box of saltine crackers, the girl recoiled in surprise as she heard the sharp clap and felt the sharp, not altogether unpleasant stinging sensation on her ass. Turning back to face her boyfriend with the full intention of chiding him, Alyssa was halted by his gaze. He looked at her so lovingly that it was hard to find fault with him. Despite her flaws, despite the extra pounds she was carrying, despite the cellulite that one could even certainly see in the dim glow of their flashlights, he still loved her so unconditionally. If the occasional spank was the price to pay for getting such a great guy, it was one that she was willing to pay.

"How the fuck did I get so lucky?" she asked.

"I dunno, you said yes when I asked if I could bone you?" Vic asked, getting a quick punch in the shoulder for his trouble. Nevertheless, it didn't remove the smirk from her face. Vic really had been a find. As wannabe Goths went, he was about as great a poser as you were going to find. More than anything else he seemed to embrace the style as a means of getting attention, and in the early days that had annoyed Alyssa greatly. When he tried out for lead singer in the band, most of the other members thought he was a joke. But, he could scream in sync with their songs and he looked the part, so the decision to keep him on hadn't been all that difficult. Soon enough Vic and Alyssa had become friends, and after friends... well, as they tend to say, the rest is history. They were in love, and she could laugh at the fact that he was the only person capable of making her feel girly.

"Fuck off," she said simply as she munched on a couple crackers.

"You offering?" he asked, "'cause I'm so good for another go."

"Maybe soon," she said, "just... just give me a moment to think, all right?"

"About options?" Vic asked with an exhalation of smoke. He'd clearly tried for a ring and failed miserably.

"Something like that, yeah," she responded wistfully as she looked off into space.

"Well like we was sayin', we got two of 'em," Vic shrugged, "choice A, we play. Got only one gun so the odds ain't that great, but we could probably halfass a Mickey and Mallory situation if we really wanted to. Lacking that, there's always choice B, where we just kick back, relax, fuck some more, get drunk some more, wait until the world's fallin' down around us and just Sid and Nancy our way into whatever the next life's got to offer. Bit more romantic, and sounds a helluva lot easier, ya know?"

"Yeah, real romantic," Alyssa said with a roll of the eyes, though she did get the sentiment. Suicide seemed to be an inevitability; Vic had been assigned a pistol (a World War II vintage Luger), one shot to each of their heads would be pretty quick. Not as pretty a way to go as the movies would have liked to make it seem, but as far as she knew, there were worse ways. _Yeah, like Yoshiko..._

To one extent or another, Alyssa could probably blame their presence in the Battle Royale on Yoshiko Kanbe. While Vic and Alyssa never exactly traveled among the most elite circles of Amberlaine High School, Yoshiko had always been something of a mutual friend. Always quick with a joke or a very lousy Jap-rap, he managed to find himself the perfect go-between between the school's higher and lower classes. For some insane reason he thought Vic and Alyssa's band actually had talent, and took it upon himself to be their number one promoter in school. While his efforts had at first seemed quite mad, they had been rather successful. The few gigs that they'd managed to arrange played to packed (albeit tiny) houses mostly due to the persistence and outgoing nature of Yoshiko Kanbe. Really, how could it be hard to hate the guy when he was making sure your pockets were full? _Easy really, because he got you in this fucking game._

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Yoshiko was usually one of those guys who knew what he was talking about, and when he supported Isaac's protest and asked for their support, it was hard for Vic and Alyssa to say no. After all he had done, it seemed like a simple gesture to repay his help. _And then they just so happen to kidnap a group of high school protestors and drop them into a Battle Royale. The moment we picked up those signs we were marked for death. Doesn't mean he or Isaac deserved what they got, but it does seem to put a little justice to things, don't it?_

"No, no it doesn't," Alyssa muttered to herself.

"What's that?" Vic asked idly as he stubbed out his cigarette and quickly replaced it with another.

"Nothing," Alyssa said with a shake of her head as she grabbed the bottle of wine and took a quick swig, "just thinking out loud."

"Ah, so long as we're being constructive here," Vic responded as he grabbed the bottle of wine.

"You know, there is a third option," Alyssa said. It wasn't exactly one she was fond of, but for some reason it seemed the most hopeful of what they had available.

"Oh yeah?" Vic asked with slight amusement, "And what's that?"

"We can try and get in contact with some of the people who survived whatever happened in the church. Maybe, just maybe if not everyone scattered, maybe there's a big group, or some groups, still trying to pull off the escape. Maybe we can try and meet up with them?" Alyssa proposed. It wasn't the greatest idea, she knew that. Assuming there really was a massacre of some sorts in the church, there was every chance that all of its survivors would now be spread out as individuals. Maybe a few couples working like her and Vic, but for the most part it would be hard to see people working as big groups. But maybe, just maybe... maybe someone was still trying. Maybe someone still wanted out. There might still be a group, smaller than the first, sure, but it could still have a plan. Someone who knew what Isaac's plan was and had more sense when it came to executing it. Someone who could help them survive. It was foolish, but it allowed for _hope._ At least more hope than ending their lives with that damn pistol would offer.

Looking to her boyfriend for some level of support, Alyssa was almost certain that she was going to find an argument. Maybe even a fight that they'd have to resolve soon with some more wine and some frantic fucking. He had never been entirely keen on the topic of escape, and not even because of Isaac's involvement. More than anything he believed the system to be infallible, and that trying to fight it would lead to their deaths faster than just kicking back and waiting to do it themselves. Volunteering to try and find people who might still be trying to rebel, it just wasn't something that Vic would normally go for.

So she could admit genuine shock upon seeing him shrug his shoulders and say, "Sure, that's a pretty decent option too I guess. I just didn't say it because I thought that all those assholes were pretty boned. But if you want to try, I'll follow you to the end baby."

Overcome with an inexplicably strong sense of joy, Alyssa jumped right on top of her boyfriend and started kissing him fiercely. If it was possible for him to understand hope at a time like this, then it really did feel like everything could be all right. Pushing her off of him for a breath of fresh air, Vic smiled that slightly crooked smile (due to years of lousy orthidonture) that she had always found so hot.

"Gee, if I knew teaming up with a bunch of suicidal geeks got you this hot and bothered I'dve stuck in the church after all," Vic said with a chuckle. Enjoying the newly (and surprisingly optimistic side of her boyfriend), Alyssa kissed him again, but tenderly. The familiar stirring in her loins told her that taking him up on his offer for another go in bed before trying to find any church refugees would be a good idea. A _very _good idea.

And then they heard the sound of glass breaking within the house. _God damn it, couldn't they have tried breaking in twenty minutes later?_ At any other time, Alyssa would have laughed like hell that that was her first thought upon hearing someone try to break in. Instead, the thought gave her an intensely creepy chill crawling up her spine. _God, if I'd just taken him up when he offered it a few minutes ago, we'd have been going at it._

"Shit, someone's trying to get in," Vic whispered harshly, "you hear where it came from?"

Alyssa quickly extinguished their two flashlights, "Front door I think. Probably trying to break out a panel to unlock the door."

"Fuck," Vic said as he stood up, trying to get used to the darkness once again. Having better eyes than her boyfriend, she could see the very worried look on his face. It basically said, _Yeah, we've got a gun, but so what?_

"They're going to get in here soon," Vic whispered quickly, "we can run, we can try to figure out who they are, or we can try and fight 'em. Pick quickly Honey Bunny or we're going to be fucked in the ass with a cactus."

_Always had a way with words Pumkin._ No, they couldn't run; they'd die. After a few hours of pretty decent sex with a reasonable hope for more in the near future, they weren't exactly dressed for a cross-country flight through the snow. She was only wearing a black pair of panties, a one-size too large Slusho! T-shirt and a blanket, while he was just stretched out in his jeans. They couldn't get dressed in the cold-weather gear quickly enough to be any good in an escape.

"We gotta fight," Alyssa said resignedly.

"OK," Vic said as he looked to the front door, probably thinking something terribly chivalrous, before adding, "whoever it is, we got the advantage. We know this house pretty good. We sneak up quiet, you blast them with the flashlights, blind 'em. If it's someone we know, we go up easy. We don't... and I'll take care of things. Sound good?"

"Sounds as good as it's going to get," Alyssa responded. They could hear the front door swinging open. _Shit, it's now or never._

Vic led silently, his bare feet making hardly a noise as he walked down the wood-paneled hall to the living room. Despite the weight advantage she held over her boyfriend, Alyssa kept up with equal swiftness. It would be the first death either of them would see in the game, but it would keep them alive. _A necessary evil. _The thought offered little comfort to the girl.

They could see the figure standing in the doorway dressed in their full cold-weather outfit. They were shaking flakes of snow from their jacket, closing the door to try and take advantage of the warmth being piped in through the heating ducts. It was too dark to make out who they were, but the frame looked masculine. Anyone alone in the game had to be considered dangerous, that was the only way they could look at it. They didn't see Vic and Alyssa coming, but the couple could see each other. Looking to her boyfriend, Alyssa nodded. _Here goes nothing._

Flipping the switches to both their flashlights on at the same time, Alyssa aimed them to quickly blind the boy standing in the foyer. He yelped in surprise, quickly firing off a shot from whatever gun he held in his hand that hit Alyssa in the chest and knocked her to the floor very dead.

"Alyssa!" Vic shrieked, trying to shoot back at the murderer who stood before him. Had his light still been good, it would have been a clear shot at the killer. Instead, as Alyssa had dropped her flashlights, his shots went wild. Three bullets spat out of Vic's Luger hit nothing but air. A fourth smashed the framed family portrait of those who had lived in the house before the Battle Royale took it from them. Seeming to have regained their composure, the killer fired off two more quick blasts from their shotgun. The roar in the small house was deafening, flame seeming to shoot from the weapon in the darkened room. Miraculously under the circumstances, both shots managed to hit Vic. The first blew off most of his left foot, while the second hit him in the gut. The boy first fell to his knees, then onto his face before moving no more.

The house was silent for a long time before Rich Miller, a.k.a. Boy # 1, finally pulled the hood of his parka down. The room stank of blood and gunpowder, the bodies of Vic and Alyssa laying splayed out on the floor almost lewdly considering their half-naked state.

"Holy shit," he said as he felt bile rising in his throat. _It was an accident, they surprised me, I just wanted to be warm, they didn't have to do that. I just wanted to be warm, grab some food, they surprised me and I killed them. Accident, right. No wait, no, it wasn't an accident, I'm playing the game! I just killed two more! I'm really playing this now, they'll have to look at me as one of the good guys, right? I'm doing what I'm supposed to do!_

Overpowered by the stench of the house's brief battle, exhaustion (partly coming from the need to find a new house since this one would probably draw fire), and sheer terror, Rich Miller bent over double and vomited all over the floor.


	34. Hour 19: 33 Contestants Remaining

**Important Note (11/23/09): **Please check out my profile for an open letter to all fans of this story.

**

* * *

Hour 19**

**33 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

She'd had no reason to expect the game to be easy. Once you were in it, you were going to die in it. That was to be expected really, it was how the game worked. Sure, there would be times of hope, brief moments where you might actually think you could win or maybe even survive. Times you could be with the ones you loved. But those times never lasted long, and no matter how much you hoped for them to last forever, they wouldn't. Diana Halsey, a.k.a. Girl # 13, wanted those times to return.

While the earliest hours of the game held little but fear, it was easy to maintain something resembling an upbeat attitude. At least then they were together. Some may have found the company of Cynthia Argento, a.k.a. Girl # 12, to be boring, maybe even mind-numbing. By traditional standards she wasn't exactly the brightest tool in the shed, and Diana was more than aware that she got as much as she did in life because of her beauty, but that didn't stop them from being friends. _We were supposed to be friends from the start and friends to the end..._

She didn't know how it could have happened. They were almost never out of each others' sights in real life, and in the game... they had been beyond inseparable. Though neither of them had gained anything resembling a weapon, being together offered some grim form of strength. A motivation to keep going. To not give up. So long as they were together, they could try to stay alive if just to keep the other from being alone. Even the fears of death had started to go away once they had made it to the church and joined the rebels who had formed there. Though there wasn't much they could have done for the group, at least they were surrounded by people who _weren't_ trying to kill them. It was perfect, for a little while at least.

And then... they got separated. Somehow in the chaos of the attack when everyone had set about running away from the scene, they had fallen apart. Diana had wanted to scream her lungs out, to see if she could attract Cynthia that way. But no, she had been cautious. She didn't want to reveal her position, and now Cynthia was dead. _You should've yelled for her after all. Maybe then..._

Diana tried her best to quash that thought and came out only with tears. According to the announcement, Cynthia had died sometime after they were separated in the church massacre. Although the rational part of Diana's mind knew that there was nothing she could do about it anymore, it did not stop the tears from falling freely down her cheeks.

"So, what now? What the fuck now?" the girl asked idly, as if hoping an answer would fall from the heavens and save her from having to make a decision. None did. It was a pity, as the options that she could see before her were not the greatest in the world. She could hide. That was probably the easiest option available; there were plenty of abandoned houses (assuming that fire had not taken them all out) and other buildings around town that would offer shelter. There may even have been some more isolated houses and cabins out in the boondocks, but they would be hard to get to given the weather. She could fight. That was always an option. That was always the point. It was a Battle Royale after all, wasn't it? _Yeah, but what kind of chance are you going to stand? You don't have a weapon, you don't have anyone watching your back, you don't even have all your sanity. You have nothing. You might as well..._

"Suicide."

Yes, that always was a good third option, wasn't it? She may not have been able to fight, she may not have been able to run, but she could always kill herself. She could find some rope, hang herself. Jump from the church's steeple (if it's high enough). Hell, she could have just wandered around shouting and hoping that some opportunistic maniac would hunt her down. It might not be the quickest way, but it would get things done. And then... and then she could be back with Cynthia. _That's what she would've wanted, right? Friends to the end? Friends *past* the end?_

No. Cynthia would have wanted her to live. Selfish though both girls may have been much of the time, there was no way either would have wanted the other to die for them. In life, Diana would have been more than glad to sacrifice her life to save Cynthia's. But Cynthia was gone. There was no getting around that. There was no way that she would ever have a chance of getting her back, but as long as she held the memory... that would count for something, wouldn't it?

Looking skyward, Diana spoke four simple words, "I love you, Cynthia."

Survival would be hard, but if she kept on her toes, there was still a chance at least. It would be better than giving up. Whether or not she made it to the end was a whole separate ball of wax, but getting that far might have just been worth it. At least then she'd have tried. If she made it to the end, if she somehow managed to fight to the top of the heap, then she would have gladly done it in Cynthia's honor. If she didn't make it, well... at least they'd be together on the flipside. Not a bad set of options when you came down to it really.

Taking off in a run through the snow, Diana sought shelter.

* * *

"So if I'm gonna die, here's what I want the world to know," Glen Counihan, a.k.a. Boy # 2, narrated nervously into his microphone, "I want the world to know... that this is actually one hell of a fucked up game."

He couldn't help but laugh. Even if the censors let pass on the air what he said, they'd still probably paint him as looking like some sort of madman. It didn't matter. If he was mad, he was mad. Given all that he, and probably everyone else had seen in the past few hours in the game, he felt he had every reason to be a little mad.

"It's a thing of genius when you look at it objectively, really. We as a species have always been fond of the violent spectacle. Hell, we have for thousands of years, just look at what an utterly decadent and violent society Rome was, and they ruled the better portion of the world way back when. If we've fallen down into times where we may compare ourselves to the wonders and accomplishments of the Roman Empire once more, well, how could that be a bad thing?"

Jumping to his feet nervously, the boy began to pace the small high school library. It wasn't the greatest shelter in the world, but it was warm, and it wasn't occupied. _Not that you'd hoped it'd be unoccupied of course. Where the fuck is Julie in all this mess? Taking care of herself. Like she always has. Always will. She's never needed you. Shake it off man._

"In the long run, yeah, it probably is that bad a thing," he continued. As long as he was talking, he couldn't think of the carnage he had witnessed. He couldn't worry about the utter futility of his existence and the fates of his friends either. Though he may have sounded like a loon, at least it made everything feel just that much better.

"Just look at the rise and the fall of Rome. Or should I say the _rises _and _falls_? Yeah, they never had just one fall. They were up and down ever since they were what we modern day fools would call an Empire, and if you look at a lot of the trends it was because of their decadence. When they would get high, real high, they'd get cocky. The emperors, your Caligulas, your Neros, they would try to appeal to their own sick sensibilities and want to get the masses on their side through the use of massive violent spectacles. The gladiators may have been professionals, they may have been doing what they did because they had to, but they did so with purpose. It was a career. When innocent people were thrown into the fray, when it purely became the blood sport, you got dissent. Nobody wanted to be next in line, did they? And then, what happens if you piss off the gladiators enough? They'll fight to live, but you push them hard enough, you make them fear enough, and you will see them stand up and fight. They will fight, and they will make it as bad as you made it for them! Remember Spartacus? The guy may have found himself pinned to a couple of two by fours for his trouble, but he knew how to rally. He could get the oppressed on his side, he could get the slaves to fight for their very survival."

They still hadn't blown up his collar yet. As far as he could tell, they hadn't even given him a warning. Meant that they either weren't paying attention, or that they didn't care one way or another. No bother. What would they care really about one half-crazed brother with a broken wrist anyway? If they let him live, at least he offered himself up as another potential body for the game in the inevitable event that he would have to move.

"You will get an uprising," he continued, strangely aware of how much he felt like he was channeling Isaac. _The fucker._

"The oppressed will stand together as one, and they will fight. And they won't fear death. They will fight because it is what they have to do. They will fight to the death because it means the extinction of their own group if they don't. But now we get to the fun part, don't we?"

Once again, the boy could only laugh. He must have sounded crazy, but damn it if it wasn't feeling good, "The real fun part? If our group goes extinct, so do the oppressors. This war we fight, the cause we fight for, is one for our very generation. The youths of America in revolt, fighting for their very existence, and they will do their best to make us extinct. Remove the problem, remove the rebellion, but if you remove the problem, then you die out. Unless you've got factories out there set to breed kids for the sole purpose of indoctrinating them when they grow up into your fucked up system, then you've got problems. Wipe us out, then you wipe out the people who'll wipe your asses when you grow old. You wipe out the people who'll be doling out your meds and turning you when you're in whatever excuse for a raisin ranch you're sent to because you can no longer take care of yourself. Wipe us out, watch yourselves die, in the end that is the key."

Looking to his broken wrist, the boy wanted to scream. It didn't hurt, not anymore, but in its own way it made him completely useless. There was almost no way that he could fight, there was no way that anyone would want to fight on his side. He would be a liability no matter what. _Maybe find some people who'll take you in for your sparkling personality like Julie did? No, not like she did. But, but there is a good shot there are still some people trying to get together. Some naïve fucks who don't know any better and think they can still make a difference. They would be better than nothing, right? And they would be able to-_

"Fight," the boy said aloud, "we will fight. We will make it bad. And you sons of bitches better watch out for when we are ready."

* * *

He was alive. That much was good. It was impossible to tell what condition he was in, the announcer wouldn't dare think of informing people how their friends were _really _doing, but he would have certainly announced every death with that grim attempt at humor he had. Of course such comforts were fleeting and ultimately offered little in the way of true solace, but Kerry Rawlings, a.k.a. Girl # 2, had to take whatever she could get. Considering how little she had to hold onto in the first place, she was glad for it. _Anything _that tied her into the real world was welcome as far as she was concerned.

Although the night's snowstorm was beginning to bear down, the lonely girl wandered through the streets of Grover's Mill as if nothing affected her. Shell shock. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Whatever you want to call it, Kerry had it in spades. Although the dimming influence of her first day in the Battle Royale had made sanity a fleeting concept, there was just enough of a survival instinct intact to keep Kerry from giving up completely. She would eat, she would rest, she would use the bathroom, and she would run. By the looks of things, she would be running until the end of time. _But at least he's OK. At least you might see him again, right? Or not. This game will do that, won't it?_

In the early hours of the game, she had done all her crying and screaming about how terrible things were and how unfair the game was. After a while, upon realizing that crying and screaming wasn't going to get her anywhere, she had stopped. She hadn't retreated from her head, but at least she stopped making noise that would give her away. She had hidden; she had tried to keep a low profile. Her weapon, if you could call pepper spray a _real _weapon, didn't give her any feeling of power or hope, but it did allow her some semblance of comfort. If she were attacked, at least there might have been an opportunity to get away. _But you weren't attacked. You did well. You hid. You lived. _

Perhaps she had hidden too well. _No, there's no such thing as hiding too well in a game like this._ If she hadn't hidden so well, maybe she would have been able to find a friendly face sooner. _Yeah, like you've got any friends in here._ If she'd found a friendly face... _then what? You got in with the people who were trying to escape. You got in under Isaac. See how well that turned out? You were given hope, then put through hell. People were dying, people were screaming, there was fire... but he was there._

He had always been there. Carlos Bautista, a.k.a. Boy # 6. Kerry held no shame in admitting that she'd had a crush on him. Hell, half the straight girls in school probably had one on him. He was athletic, he was kind, very attractive... not that he'd have anything to do with Kerry of course. All things said and done she was pretty average looking and more than a little timid. There was little she could do to impress someone like Carlos. But she could hope, and she could dream, and she could pine away like the schoolgirl she was.

When she had found out that he too was in the Battle Royale, she had been horrified. It was bad enough that her life was in danger. But Carlos? He had never done anything to anyone. He of all people didn't deserve to be in this kind of danger. _And yet you're glad he's here. You want him here too. Selfish? Mean? Of course it is, and you know you love it._ _How glad were you when you saw him coming in and rescuing you from that damnfool fire you started? How glad were you when he was checkin' up on you every few minutes in the church? How much did it get your panties in a twist to have him actually talk to you? Felt good, didn't it? Felt real good._

And then everything fell apart. The monster broke in, it killed everyone (well, five people, but it sure as hell looked like everyone). She had screamed. She had run. Somehow, she even managed to make it out alive. But again, she was alone. Again, she was fearful. Again, she was close to death. And yet, somehow she managed to live. Carlos' very survival had almost become a totem to the girl, something she could hold onto and keep going with. Was it healthy? Probably not, but what in the game was.

It was getting colder. It would continue to get colder; that much was a fact of life in Michigan in winter. But would she do anything about it... That was a question. Freezing to death wasn't supposed to be the most unpleasant way to go. You hurt for a while, then start to lose your mind, and then it's over and done with. It would mean not seeing Carlos again, but it might at the same time mean better chances for his survival. There had to be something to that, right? _One less useless girl in the way, one greater possibility that he is going to make it out of this alive. But at least he is-_

The boy grabbed her by the arm from behind. He did not do so violently, lest it scare the girl and make her scream. Not that anyone needed to worry about Kerry screaming.

"Hey," Ruben "Rub" Wood, a.k.a. Boy # 5, said, "Kerry, you aight, girl?"

Her face was a blank mask. Even though she turned to face Rub and the group traveling with him, she could not see them. The boy waved his hand in front of her eyes as if to test her, even though it was clear that nothing was going to happen.

"She's out of it," Amber Miike, a.k.a. Girl # 5, said simply.

"We can't leave her like this," Hera Morgan, a.k.a. Girl # 20, added.

"What, you want to take her with us?" Amber asked incredulously, "If she slows us down too much, we'll all die. Especially with that giant sonofabitch who massacred half our friends back there, you do remember him, right?"

They talked back and forth before the catatonic girl, though she could not fully comprehend even a word of it.

"That's not what I'm saying," Hera responded.

"I say bring him on," Darwin Wong, a.k.a. Boy # 20, replied angrily, "the guns we got between us, if we see him, he's a goner when we all get up like a goddamn firing squad, POW, POW, POW!"

"We're taking her with us," Rub finally said. Though perhaps the smallest person in the group outside of maybe Kerry and Julie Hewitt, a.k.a. Girl # 19, he had taken on the leadership position since their exodus from the church. Although Amber or Julie would have more than made an excellent leader, it had somehow fallen to Rub by mutual, silent agreement.

He continued, "Basim said that we should try and gather together as many of the survivors as we could in the bowling alley, and like it or not Amb, Kerry's one of 'em. Maybe she'll snap out, maybe she won't, but whatever happens to her shouldn't be decided by our collective asses here in the middle of the frozen street, you hear?"

Though Amber clearly did not care for the prospect of adding a half-zombified girl to their crew, she did not fight Rub either. So, with Hera and Jordan Miike, a.k.a. Boy # 16, helping Kerry along, the group set off toward the bowling alley.

After a while, Kerry was aware that something good had happened.


	35. Hour 20: 33 Contestants Remaining

**Hour 20**

**33 Contestants Remaining**

* * *

It was a miracle that the church hadn't burnt to the ground. Well, maybe. Considering the bodies that lay piled beneath a sheet in the middle of the church, Rene Foucalt, a.k.a. Girl # 25, wasn't so sure that fire wouldn't have been the merciful way to go. They had died badly, and by the looks of it not all of them bought it quickly. What happened to them... took time.

"Tabernac," the girl muttered under her breath, slipping back into the familiar Quebecois profanities that rolled so well off the tongue. It seemed the only word capable of describing such horrors in the midst of holy ground. There were boys in the pile. Three of them. Without their faces it was hard to tell who was who, but given the announcement she had a fair idea of who they were. _No one who concerns you. No one who would have come to your rescue if they heard you screaming. If they are dead, they are dead. You are alive. Who's to say they may not even have had this coming?_

Coming to the church had seemed like a terrible idea, but like most, she had a hard time avoiding the sound of such a conflict. Partly holding a morbid curiosity, partly believing there was a chance to pick up a stray gun that had gotten lost in the battle, she had headed toward the sounds of the conflict. Every so often she had seen people fleeing through the town. When there were boys, she would hide. _Not again. Not going to let that happen again._ _Never again._ When there were girls, she made no special efforts to hide. If they saw her and wanted to be friendly, she would humor them, for a few minutes at least. If they wanted to try something... well, she no longer feared her ability to kill another human being. If something terrible needed to be done, she would have to do it.

"But as terrible as this? Could you be that bad?" she asked idly, looking to the shrouded bodies on the floor. The air was rich with the stench of their blood and shit, no matter the cold air that seemed to be pouring into the building. She would not be so terrible. _Though CJ would probably say otherwise, wouldn't he?_

"Yes, I'm sure," she muttered again. The dull weight of the claw hammer in the pocket of the new, violation-free parka she had liberated from a house on Ridgemont Street comforted the girl. It was not the most impressive of weapons in the game. Certainly it would do no good in the middle of a gunfight. But, the weapon did not matter. The person wielding it did. What they were capable of doing with the weapon, that mattered. She had done more with an old claw hammer than many who had been assigned guns could have. The bits of hair, blood and skin still stuck to the claw were more than enough to prove that. If she had to, she knew she could be merciless. She knew she could kill. She had what it took.

But she wouldn't enjoy it. There was no way she could enjoy the game. She could hate, but she could not enjoy. Enjoyment would involve a certain amount of love, and there was no way she could love the game. _Let the hate consume you. Let the hate help you survive. It will allow you to make the difficult decisions needed to survive. But never become part of the game. Never become part of the system that allows people to do whatever they please, to remove that one filter that keeps us from totally giving into their animalistic instincts. Never do that._

In a strange way, the thing that angered her the most was that Chad had been wrong. There was no hope for humanity. CJ had proved that in spades. He attacked her. He meant to kill her. In this game, she could understand that in an abstract sense. You are supposed to kill, you are compelled to kill by the rules of the game, you _need _to kill. He didn't _need _to rape her. What he did, he did for fun. What he did had probably been beneath the surface of his brutish exterior all along, it just took the game to let it out. In a world without consequences, he had raped her. He had destroyed her virginity, he had _soiled _her. And he laughed. He loved doing it. He probably loved every minute of it until she thrust her fist into the stab wound in his stomach. _And these bodies... whoever did this enjoyed doing this._

"We are fucked," she muttered gloomily into her microphone, "as a species, we are fucked. God help us all."

Shaking her head, the girl made her way toward the front of the church. There were no guns here, only death and destruction. She would have to move before any other scavengers found their way around.

Swinging open one of the church's massive front doors, she was greeted with the sight of a slender figure standing just twenty feet away. With the heavy winter clothing, it was hard to tell it was a girl or a boy by body alone. Looking to the figure's face, all she could see through the blue balaclava was a pair of sympathetic eyes.

"Rene, is that you?" Frank Luczak, a.k.a. Boy # 14, asked calmly.

"Get the fuck out of here!" Rene practically shrieked back to him. Part of her mind had a hard time reconciling the image of kind, handsome Frank with the horrors of this game. That was the only thing that allowed her to respond. Frank was one of the more decent guys at school. _But that's just the surface. What's underneath that cover? Could he have some of CJ in him?_

"Please," Frank said, reaching out one hand pleadingly, "it's very cold out here Rene, I would like to get warm. It is warm in there, right?"

That remark threw her for a loop. He didn't know that the church had been broken into. Does that mean he is good? _No, that just means he doesn't know what happened here, if he's even telling the truth._

As if to prove a point, he pulled down the front of his balaclava with his outstretched hand and flashed a million dollar smile, "Come on, it's me, Frank. It's very cold. I think my bottled water might even be frozen."

His voice was pleasant. Silky. But... he never removed his left hand from his parka pocket. _It's a trap._

Rene slammed the door shut just as the boy twitched his arm out from the pocket. She ducked out of the way seconds before one of the massive bullets from Frank's Colt Anaconda blew a fist sized hole in the door.

There was little time, and no way to lock the front doors. She couldn't fight him, not with that cannon he carried. She had to run... but where?

* * *

The snow that carpeted the land around Grover's Mill glowed a brilliant white under the harsh light towers that dotted the landscape. There were some parties behind the game who had worried that they would interfere too much, saying they would make it impossible for people to hide in the dark outskirts of town. Those voices were quickly defeated by practicality, as the probability of a snowstorm made night vision impractical. The light towers would make it impossible to hide, but at the same time they would give the audiences back home the best show possible.

The show they got just south of Hunter's Lake was of Lakisha Childs, a.k.a. Girl # 3, on the verge of death. She had had asthma attacks before. They had been bad before, it was difficult for them not to be living up in Michigan (which seemed like the goddamn Antarctic for about half the year as far as Lakisha was concerned). This one was, bar none, the worst. She knew better than to be running. She knew better than to be out at night. She knew a lot of things. It was hard to grow up with the condition and _not_ know all the things notto do. But, those considerations had gone by the wayside when she entered the Battle Royale. You could try to live life like you would in the real world in the Battle Royale. For a time at least. But there was no way to avoid it entirely, not when there was the constant pressure of a neck bomb to keep you company. You had to have what it takes to survive, and Lakisha was beginning to doubt that she had it. _Just let your lungs close up. Let the asthma take over, close off the lungs, close off air to the brain. It will hurt, but you'll lose consciousness in a few minutes, and maybe die a few minutes after that in a slumber. Not too bad as things could go in here, right?_

"No," she practically whispered through racking gasps. Reaching into her pocket, the girl pulled out her inhaler and took a hit off of it. The steroids opened up her bronchials, and everything relaxed. Mostly. Of course it wasn't perfect, but it would get her by long enough. Long enough to figure out what the hell was going on.

That much, at the very least, she felt fairly capable of. Though she was not a fighter by any stretch of the imagination, Lakisha wasn't willing to let that worry her. She had always been, and would always be, a brain. For some reason her blue-collar parents could never understand, Lakisha had always tested through the roof on aptitude tests and had been, admittedly, a little odd. While other little girls had played with dolls and dressed up as princesses, Lakisha had learned to take apart and reassemble old computers just out of curiosity by age six. By age twelve she had become a fairly (although not brilliantly) accomplished hacker, and though she never really cared to do much with it, it was fun to know that, if she wanted to, she could find out pretty much whatever she wanted to with a little dedication.

She was a nerd, and damn proud of it. _Now if only you didn't look like one._ That had always been the problem. It was one thing to be a nerd, it was another to look the part. If it weren't for the braces, the acne, and her nearly skeletal frame, she might have been cute. _Maybe even cute enough to get Isaac's attention? Unlikely. But a girl can hope, right? Well, could hope. We shouldn't have lost Isaac._

Things would be tough without Isaac. He had been able to organize a distinct sense of security that even Lakisha could not have anticipated. He had gotten the people together. He had even given her enough information that made it seem possible, no, even plausible to remove the collars without killing themselves. And, with just a little luck... she was convinced that she could still pull it off. It would take some time, some tools, and more than a little privacy, but she was fairly convinced that she could still remove her collar.

And then... then things would change. Fast.

But she couldn't do it in town. The town was liable to be a war zone in the wake of the church massacre. Hell, she didn't know who she could or could not trust in the clusterfuck that was sure to follow. She would have to keep an ear out. Remove the collar, call up any of the surviving people in what Isaac considered to be his inner circle, and then play things out from there. There were a few million things that could go wrong with the plan at any point, but Lakisha was willing to risk them. She had no other choice.

Looking at her watch and shivering in the cold, the girl grimaced. It would take some time to trudge up into the outskirts, but if she kept wrapped up she would probably be able to avoid any frostbite by the time she reached a cabin by the northern end of the lake. _If they've got a furnace or a gennie, you've got heat. You get heat, you can rest, and take the time to take this damn thing off._

With that thought, Lakisha allowed herself to smile.

Had she known she was being followed, perhaps she would not have felt so free to do so.

* * *

Frank kicked the door to the church open with only the slightest hint of a smile on his face. Though it was hard to feel much of anything regarding the fates of his fellow classmates, he was beginning to understand the thrill that everyone else seemed to get from the competition. He was beginning to understand his potential. After all those years of curiosity and wondering what he had in him, he now knew that he was what the rest of the world would probably consider a maniac. A psycho killer. One sick son of a bitch. _That is what they would consider cool, isn't it?_

Swinging his pistol with his line of sight, Frank made a quick survey of the church. Nobody. The charred remains of many of the pews littered the room. Cold air filled the room from the stained glass window they had broken out to make their escape. But, no Rene. _Curious._

"Hello?" Frank called pleasantly as he walked across the room, "I'm really sorry about that. You startled me when you slammed the door, I didn't mean to shoot. Heck, I barely know how to use this thing."

Pulling up the edge of the bloodied sheet with his foot, Frank looked briefly at the mutilated remains of the victims of the church massacre with distaste. _So crude. No finesse._

Letting the sheet down, Frank surveyed the options. Really, there were only two places that Rene could have gotten to. She either made it out the broken window, or she had escaped to the back room. Between the two options, he knew what he was willing to bet on. With a flick of the thumb, the boy cocked the hammer to his pistol.

"Come on Rene, stop playing around, you're scaring me here," Frank called pleasantly again, "I've been so lonely... I just need a friend. Please, please be my friend?"

Even Frank had to admit surprise when he saw the girl come out of the church's back room. It was too easy.

* * *

The gunshot rang clearly in the night air, causing Lakisha to yelp sharply in surprise. It was close. Too close. Not that big (in the past day she'd become quite adept at understanding the different sounds that firearms made), but still fairly close. Chancing a look over her shoulder, the girl saw a sight that made her blood chill.

The monster was on her tail. It was still a good half mile away, but the ground out here was fairly flat. There was no chance of losing it, nor was there any doubt that it was following her. It had to have followed her footsteps out from the church. _Stupid. Stupid. You should have been on that._ He plodded across the snowy plains slowly, but swiftly enough that he was gaining ground. _Why'd it take a shot? He should know that he can't hit me at that range._

She had to act fast. Difficult at even the best of times, damn near impossible with it feeling like her asthma wanted to rip the lungs from her chest one at a time. _And unarmed. And running through almost knee deep snow. You've got your work cut out for you._

There was a small hill up ahead. Looking at it gave her hope. If she could run to the top of it, there was every chance she could disappear over the other side of it. It would be difficult to wipe out all traces of her footprints, but there had to be a way. _I'm not going to die here. Not like this._

Cold air tearing at her lungs, Lakisha fought her way to the top of the hill. Her heart was pounding, and it felt as if she was going to have another attack at any second. But she fought on. The monster was gaining ground, and the girl looked around quickly enough to see him raise his hand above his head and fire off another shot. _Warning shots? Why the hell is he doing that? Just making me run faster..._

Clambering to the top and hoping for a chance to escape, Lakisha felt her heart drop. The massive expanse of Hunter's Lake mocked her as she looked don upon it. Although not very far across (she would have reckoned it a good hundred and fifty feet from the southern to the northern bank), it was wider than three football fields. She could try making a run around it, but by the time she hit the edge, the monster could easily catch up and kill her. Looking to the dark ice as it lay illuminated by the massive light towers, Lakisha didn't know what to do. She could try to make a run for it, but there was no guarantee that she could beat the monster. There was always trying to make it across the ice, but there was no guarantee that it didn't thin out in the middle. Trying to make it across the ice was as dangerous as standing still. _So that's what he was doing. Herding you. Firing off shots, seeing that you were heading toward the lake, knowing that you'd have your back to a wall with it up there. Predator behavior._

Could she fight? Not convincingly. Hide? Not counting the sparse trees, the only thing close to her was an old wooden dock that went about twenty feet into the lake. Its edges were lined with icycles that hung precariously over the water. _Could you...? Yes, with a little effort._

Running for the dock, Lakisha knew what she had to do.

* * *

Frank was surprised when the girl walked out from the church's back room. He was even more surprised when he saw who it was.

Madison Holland, a.k.a. Girl # 14, exited the church's back room rubbing sleep from her eyes. Though she looked like hell, and since it didn't appear that the game had improved her general disposition all that much, it was very bizarre to see her face turn to one that almost portrayed gratitude.

"Frank?" the bleary-eyed girl asked, "God am I glad to see you."

Frank would not normally have said the same. Though it was true that they had often traveled in similar social circles back in the world, he had always found Madison to be a fairly unpleasant little trollup. Apparently he wasn't the only one, she had a rather nasty reputation amongst pretty much everyone in Amberlaine High School.

He smiled back at the girl for a moment before raising the pistol. Her look of shock was probably priceless to the viewers back home. She didn't even run. It was easy to line up the shot.

Frank never saw it coming. In a flash, Rene jumped to her feet. Covered in blood, gore, and the white sheet that she had been hiding under with the bodies from the church massacre, she ran toward Frank without making so much as a sound. With the head of the claw hammer bunched up in her fist, she punched Frank in the back of the head. Hard. He didn't even let out a grunt as he fell to the ground, smashing the side of his head against one of the few remaining pews. Blood flowed freely from his scalp as he lay on the floor.

In a flash, Rene dove for the gun on the floor, training the ungainly weapon on Madison.

"Don't make a fucking move, bitch," Rene commanded, "or I'll blow your ovaries out your asshole, so help me God."

With her heart pounding more than she wanted to admit, Rene made a cursory search of Frank's pockets, pulling out all the loose bullets they held and forcing them into her own pockets. She would have been more thorough, but there was something about Madison that made her nervous. _It's just nerves. You've killed again, you got a gun, you want to figure out what you're going to do from here. It's all right. You're OK. You weren't the victim this time._

Sparing one last glance at the bewildered Madison, Rene could only feel disgust. This girl was going to let it happen. She was just standing there like a sheep led to the slaughter. She would have bought Frank's act, hook, line and sinker, and she would have died for it. And her manners! Ungrateful _petite pute._

"You're welcome," Rene said sarcastically as she ran from the church.

She was not going to be a victim anymore. She didn't need to hide.

* * *

She had hidden. She was freezing, and would almost certainly die if the beast stayed in the area too long, but she was alive. Lying on top of the ice beneath the dock was a tight squeeze, and doing so in such a way that would prevent the breaking of some of the hanging icicles was damn near impossible. But, it did the job. As far as the monster would know, she had walked onto the dock, but not off. Perhaps she had taken off across the ice, and by some sheer miracle of momentum had actually made it to the other side. At his size, such a move would be impossible for the creature to accomplish. He would have to give up. _It's the logical choice, but who the hell said that that monster was a logical being? Just pray. Hope. He's a beast, not a thinking thing. You can outsmart him if you stay hidden._

Staring up through a crack in the slats of the dock, Lakisha could only see a sliver of bright light shining through. It was just empty sky beyond that, darkness that the occasional flakes of snow would obscure. That sliver of light was all the access to the outside world that she had. _Breathe softly, breathe slowly. He cannot find you, he cannot..._

_Heavy footsteps in the snow. Close. Coming closer. Pausing._ _He's reading the snow, he's trying to find out what you did. Where you went. He's coming closer._

**THUD**.

**THUD**.

**THUD**. The wood creaked heavily.

**THUD**.

_He's on the dock. Walking out. Snow falling in your face, he's closer. The light is gone, he's directly over you. God, the stench. Even in cold like this, he smells like death. Like rot. What the hell is this thing? The slats are bending, the dock isn't sure it can hold its weight. Please hold, please keep his weight just long enough. Let him be tricked. He's looking at the ice. He thinks you went out that way._

"_Hurn_," she heard the beast grunt. _He's confused. Frustrated. Walking back down the dock. Can see the light again. He's moved past. He's walking away._

The thudding sound moved down the dock. She could hear him crunching through the snow again. _He's walking away. Just give him a few minutes. Wait, wait just long enough for him to get away. Just hold out, breathe easy, don't freeze to death... no tall order, not under these-_

She could hear the heavy plodding in the snow coming back. The footsteps sounded purposeful. _Shit, he knows! What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO?_

His footsteps heavily landed upon the dock, and there was a pause. She thought she could almost hear the heavy, breathy chuckling of the man with the potato-sack mask. There was the sound of something heavy swinging through the air, and the shattering of old wood. _He's using his ax, tearing up the dock. Have to get out, have to run._

But how could she run? She was on ice, and he was getting closer. She looked around, the sliver of light above her no longer offering protection, no longer offering a connection to the outside world. If she was going to make it out alive, she would have to-

CRASH! More of the dock torn up, he was only a few feet away.

Lakisha looked to the vertical beams that anchored the dock in the lake. With a little effort, she could reach out and push herself across a good portion of the ice. _How far is it? Maybe a hundred feet? A hundred and fifty, right? Something like that? If the surface is smooth, and you get enough of a start, you could give it a try..._

Despite being a stereotypical nerd in most respects physically, Lakisha was quite strong. Having not found most of the clubs in school that mentally stimulating, she decided to take a more physical approach and instead joined stage crew. She wasn't one of the greatest set designers in the world, but God knew that she was good enough at hauling it around and putting it together once it was designed. The work had always wreaked havoc with her asthma, but it had felt good otherwise and given her a fairly decent upper body.

Reaching out one arm to each beam, the girl braced herself. Pushed herself back and forth tentatively. _Just like curling._

The beast tore into the dock once more. He should have been able to see her feet. Bracing every muscle in her upper body, Lakisha pushed herself across the ice. The ice was indeed smooth, and with enough force she was able to see the dock rocket by above her. She slid across the ice on her back, looking toward the monster as he sped away. It watched her slide across the ice with a cock of the head that she had taken for a sign of stupidity. She had eluded it. She had tricked it. She was indeed going to get away...

...well, about fifty feet away. Though her push was mighty, it was not nearly strong enough to get her all the way across the lake. Realizing this as she slowed down, Lakisha whipped her arms and legs out and tried to push herself across the lake. The frozen surface was smooth and allowed her little traction. It was impossible to take her eyes off the beast, who stood calmly on the edge of the dock. Reaching to his belt, he pulled free the Glock 18C pistol that had once belonged to a certain Aziz Haddad, formerly Boy # 8. Calmly, he pointed the weapon at the girl.

She screamed in fear. She screamed in despair. But most of all, she screamed at the unfairness of it all. _I had made it! I was going to make it! I was going to beat the game, I was going to be a hero! I was going to make Isaac proud!_

He fired one shot. It hit her in the stomach, agony exploding through her body like a fireball. The bullet traveled through the girl and crashed into the ice, shattering it and sending spiderwebs of cracks out in every direction. Lakisha thrashed about in pain with blood flowing freely from her mouth and stomach. In a moment's time, her death throes were too much.

The ice shattered.

* * *

Cletus Carrington Atlas, a.k.a. Boy # 26, watched as the dying girl sank into the frozen lake. Bloody water began to seep beneath the icy surface in an almost beautiful, Rorschach test-like pattern. They'd shown him plenty of those damn cards in the months of physical therapy after he'd won the Battle Royale, though he never found out what they were supposed to say about him. Either way, the beast had little time to consider the art of his kill, but more than enough to lament the conditions. If the little bitch hadn't gone out onto the ice, he could have made her like the rest. Was it possible that she had done it on purpose? More than likely. She was supposed to be a smart one after all, and she did follow after that other rabble-rouser. _Damn her. Her teeth'd make a good bracelet._

Sighing inwardly, Cletus pulled the cell phone from his pocket and dialed the number he knew so well. The Brit picked up quickly on the other end.

"Took care o'the whore," the beast said simply.

"Excellent, excellent Cletus," Sir Banastare Tarleton said back in his warm hideaway, "now that little rebel movement doesn't stand a chance of disrupting our game."

"Good," Cletus responded, even though he didn't give a damn what The Brit had to say, "You'n I, we're done now. This here's ny gane now."

Throwing the phone into Hunter's Lake with the rapidly sinking body of Lakisha Childs, Cletus Carrington Atlas smiled his lipless grin. He had been working at the whims of the producers for too long, making sure the game moved forward, making sure the rebels they knew would break apart before they could do anything constructive. Taking out Lakisha, their tech expert and last possible threat to the sanctity of the game, was the last thing he would do for that damn British faggot. From then on, he was going to play the game on his terms.

Turning his smile to the spreading blood beneath the ice, the creature watched its designs spread out into a blooming, sweeping design that looked all too much like a bird. _Like a phoenix risen._


End file.
